Around the Blogs, Tuesday, December 11, 2007

• Amidst his usual role as the go-to place for all the info you need on the two Supreme Court sentencing rulings, Doug Berman accidentally slipped in this post at Sentencing Law and Policy on the use of billboards and websites in AZ to publicize recent DUI offenders by making their names and faces prominent. Yes, yes, it's shameful, so shameful, because it's shaming, we know, we know. But it's a he-l of a lot better than the cost of locking these folks up to get the same point across. And here's one that hits even closer to home in the same state, dressing the offenders up in pink and having them publicly bury victims of alcohol abuse. Yes, again, we know--it's much better to expose these guys to the joyous and uplifting life that respects their dignity and integrity so much more in prison. Or to have a TECHNOCORRECTIONS "solution" that basically alters them pharmaceutically or genetically. Given the choice of the three, I'm sticking my face up there and wearing the pink and grabbing a shovel.
• Grits for Breakfast has found some interesting connections between dyslexia and successful entrepreneurialism, which as we all know often manifests itself criminally. I think he's onto something we need to spend more time with.
• Real Cost of Prisons has some strong op-eds on the imperative need for prison policy changes in PA (a state with guidelines, you "guidelines will make things better" folks, and you know who you are, as well as those who spew that guidelines always mean weakness) and on the crisis of using prisons to house and treat our mentally ill population.
• Finally, Pam Clifton at Think Outside the Cage has some brain-ticklers for you as well, including this refutation that the general public would just go wild on legalized drugs, that tried-and-untrue favorite of the drug warriors, this description of kiosk programs for low-risk probationers and parolees that saves costs and time for supervision of the higher risk guys, and this claim that legal or med marijuana would spur industry in NM. Hear those heads exploding?