News of the Day, Tuesday, November 27, 2007

• Showing how policymakers in one state pay very little attention when bad ideas go bad in other states, WA is planning a major crackdown on registrations for sex offenders just as, as we’ve talked about before, CA is facing the massive (and probably undo-able) implementation problems with its GPS tracking system and GA’s top court has struck down the residency restrictions on them. (Doug Berman adds some nice commentary on the implications of the CA GPS troubles for all TECHNOCORRECTIONS here, and I can testify that WI is having the same problems.)
• Speaking of TECHNO and dwelling on irony, research is indicating that nicotine may help recovering alcoholics with their attention and working memory. I think treatment providers may go with patches rather than the more customary manner of the drug’s delivery, however.
• ID hearing from a TX private cell provider that they’re better and willing to supply even more beds to keep that state from facing up to its incarceration policy problems.
• A move in MA to decriminalize an ounce or less of pot, familiar arguments pro and con. What’s fun about this article is that, of course, the idiotic “gateway” drug argument is hauled out by a critic, who also heads the widely discredited DARE program in the state. Don’t you dare let reality hit you there, buddy. (h/t Real Cost of Prisons)
• Finally, while on the topic of not letting reality hit you, CT’s gov wants a task force there to fix the crim just sys problems that have gotten a lot of attention there lately, talking about several ideas to improve the system but insisting that the substantial costs associated with what’s being discussed don’t have to be considered until an agreement is in place. This is what passes for leadership in state capitols all over the country these days. And when exactly did we in our American democracy deliberate and vote on “public safety,” however poorly defined, being the Number 1 thing we want from our government, trumping education, economic development, health, safe bridges and roads, etc., or how about our children's futures or world peace, or how about not melting all the ice on the poles and inundating our shorelines? Seriously, because I missed that election somehow.