Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Around the Blogs, Wednesday, October 17, 2007

  • The latest blogger on fire is Pam Clifton at Think Outside the Cage. She has great links up to pieces on the US’s role as the only major lifetime incarcerator of teens, the truly ridiculous myths that were used to sell crack as the devil drug (before meth and whatever’s coming next) that got us so hysterical and Congress so punitive against African-Americans, and the Chief Constable of North Wales’ call for drug legalization ). Oh, heck, just go check out the whole site. It’s always worth your time. ("If policy on drugs is in future to be pragmatic not moralistic, driven by ethics not dogma, then the current prohibitionist stance will have to be swept away as both unworkable and immoral, to be replaced with an evidence-based unified system (specifically including tobacco and alcohol) aimed at minimisation of harms to society."
  • CrimProf Blog finds a very interesting article on the actual utility of drug courts. The author argues that drug courts may actually make things worse on prison systems and on those most needing of help by finding successes in those likely to succeed in any case and by making it more likely that those likely to fail will be tripped up and sent back to prison.
  • Funny (but not really) story and good advice from Anne Reed at Deliberations to any future trial lawyers and, well, judges who may end up looking like an idiot anyway. (Surely you’re tempted to read it now.)
  • Voir Dire has a couple of bell-ringers up right now, one on the continued growth of the “Liar’s Index” in America and one on the latest Nobel Prizes for Vood . . . Economics. The latter raises the point that always astounds me about that discipline [sic] and how we accept it as real, the fact that so much of econ is based on models, assumptions, and ideology that isn’t grounded or tested in the real world. What was the name of those characters in Gulliver’s Travels who epitomized this kind of behavior? Why are we giving them awards???

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