Monday, October 02, 2006

Around the Blogs 10-02-06

Doug Berman tips us off to this long but interesting (and depressing) NY Times story on the potential corruption resulting from campaign contributions and appellate judicial elections. OH is having a hard time with elections, government, and ethics in general right now, and this doesn't help its reputation. Be sure to check out Kent Scheidegger's (Crime and Consequences) alternative in the comments. . . . Speaking of Kent, at his own space, he links to this Salem, OR op-ed on the use of prisons as recruiting grounds for Islamic extremists, as we have noted here before. . . . This week's forum at Empirical Legal Studies is the gap between legal scholars and political scientists, a topic we discuss periodically. Mainly on how to study the Supreme Court apparently, but I'm betting many of the same points apply to the gap between sentencing scholars in law schools and the policy folks in poli sci and public affairs departments. Looking forward to it. . . . The Real Cost of Prisons has a couple of links to recent stories. One is to a study of the impact of post-prison employment programs on employment and recidivism in Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Chicago. The other is to a Colorado Springs Gazette piece solidifying CO's case for beating WI to the "next-to-be-CA" crown with its prison "policies." . . . For those of you who wondered what the Therapeutic Jurisprudence link in our recent Blog Buddies post (it will get set up on the right, I promise) was, here's an SSRN description by David Wexler at the U of AZ law school (h/t Crim Prof Blog). . . . From Ken Lammers at Crim Law, we discover this Columbus, GA op-ed critical of private prisons, CCA in particular. . . . Grits for Breakfast has a couple of new posts up. This one notes how the TX sex offender registry's implementation is already overburdened the same way the state's probation system is, with the same effect that the really bad guys have better chances to get away with more. And this one updates us on the state's Project RIO to get released inmates into jobs, and the news is surprisingly upbeat. Way to go, Grits. You're way more than just "provocative."

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