Tuesday, July 24, 2007

News and Blogs Together, Tuesday 24, 2007

  • Have We All Just Lost Our Minds? At a middle school where it’s become cool to slap each other’s butts, two kids face probation and a life as registered sex offenders. We should count them lucky. The DA was originally going for felonies, but thought this was more appropriate. Yet one more case proving that we need special legal training and certification before anyone can become a prosecutor. (This MI guy’s a second proof, making yet another unsubstantiated claim that prison is the best way to reduce crime and prevent victimizations with most offenders and offenses, which OH seems to be figuring out (h/t Think Outside the Cage) even if MI has its clueless.)
  • Good. “To Catch a Predator” getting sued over the suicide it caused. (h/t Sex Crimes Blog)
  • An eye-raising post at Prevention Works on how credit scammers get children’s Soc Sec numbers and run up debts, meaning Susie and Johnny are thousands of dollars in debt while in grade school. Of course, the PW folks give you the scoop on how to protect your kids best from this. What a weird and too malign world we live in.
  • Speaking of weird and malign, turns out that women suffer more brain damage from alcoholism than men (yes, we know, because they have more brain to work with).
  • Advances in “surveillance society” technologies march on.
  • Am I Prophetic or What? Here’s an American Prospect article advocating having former inmates in on any deliberations of serious sentencing and prison reform. Sorta like what I said a couple of weekends back, huh? Now maybe someone will listen. (h/t Real Cost of Prisons)

No comments: