Friday, July 20, 2007

The Political Brain and Corrections Sentencing

The Situationist has an excerpt on The Political Brain, a new book that emphasizes the role of emotion and feeling in decision-making and how political parties that emphasize “rationality” and “facts” end up being losing political parties. This seconds a point we make here that our “cost-benefit” arguments and appeals to be “smart” rather than “tough” are losers from the get-go, appealing only to a minority of people inclined to think that way and even they may bolt from that process when fear and terror are the issues at hand. Corr Sent Reform will only draw the necessary popular support it needs when it acknowledges and responds to people’s fears of victimization, which means arguing from a standpoint of what PROTECTS people best for the money we have to spend. This book is getting a lot of hype. Maybe some of it will bleed over into our corr sent deliberations.

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