Tuesday, January 23, 2007

News and Blogs Together

Here's the headline:

Cyber criminals move focus to web
Cyber criminals will increasingly turn their attention to the web and away from e-mail security in 2007, according to a new report


Clearly a big new reality for sentencers and corr sent policy. And guess what nation has the most malware hosts and spam senders, with the worst preparation and security? Ding, ding, ding. . . . Sex Crimes Blog picks up on a note from Ben Barlyn in NJ and notes the new activity on sex offenders in the state, part of which would effectively banish them not from towns or homes but from the Internet. Seems much more reasonable to me. One criterion with sanctioning sex offenders should always be, what can we do to punish them that is not likely to make it more difficult to catch and prosecute them? The current wave of restrictions, banishments, and threats of death not only violate that but actually make matters worse. The web restriction doesn’t seem to have this impact and does seem like actual punishment. But I'm interested in your reaction. Agree or disagree? . . . This link will take you to a really nice article on the problems with implementing the "no smoking" in prisons policies that several states have adopted (in this case, TN). Seriously. It's a good overview of prison black markets and what happens when they get disrupted. . . . Closer to 1984 all the time. NYC may go with requiring biometrics not on criminals or suspects but simply on city workers, tracking their arrivals and departures, complete with high pressure high tech firms pushing and pushing. Not there yet, but, in an age of terrorism fear and of "those who have nothing to hide shouldn't worry," how long before these techniques move even further? (h/t Governing). . . . Think Outside the Cage has a link to a very good report on female incarceration that was written in part by a couple of very good people I've had the fortune of working with in the past, Judy Greene and Kevin Pranis. Go check it out. . . . Finally, a legislator in MA has bit on the false promise of chemical castration (rape is rarely about sex, and castration doesn't stop imposition of one's will, just makes it more creative and potentially dangerous), and got the idea supposedly from some correctional officers, well known in history for their familiarity with science. But here's the money quote, as they say, complete admission that the guy doesn't have a clue what any research would tell him or what "experts" are:

“Perhaps, with proper monitoring, this could be a legitimate alternative to incarceration,” Rep. Paul Casey (D-Winchester) said. “Some experts say it is a legitimate answer.”

Perhaps?

Please, folks. Can we just once base something on evidence? Just once? We might find we like it. And, better, that for once, something works.

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