Around the Blogs, Tuesday, March 20, 2007

• Corey Rayburn Yung is back with a vengeance at Sex Crimes Blog. Lots of good posts. Most interesting to me were the one on op-eds finding wisdom against sex offender residency restrictions and the one on policymakers finding political hay in them.
• Think Outside the Cage alerts us to a new book skewering the questionable use of questionable statistics by anti-drug authorities in their War on (Some) Drugs.
• Norm Pattis at Crime & Federalism inadvertently displays why our criminal justice system is so skewed and delegitimized with this defense of defense lawyers v. the obligation to seek justice. I see it as a major part of the answer to this sad and legit question posed at The Situationist: Why Do Lawyers Acquiesce In Their Clients’ Misconduct? We have let the adversarial system, with all these articulate and vapidly evil defenses, undermine what Pattis claims to be defending—a process that protects innocent from injustice—through its clear disrespect for truth and just simply doing right by people. Because he and his defense colleagues are tied to their notions that guilt doesn’t matter, they allow prosecutors to justify theirs that the accused is a "bad guy" guilty of something, even if not this crime, so it doesn’t matter what they do to put that guy behind bars. And the whole system becomes cancerous. That intelligent and passionate people like Pattis not only don’t see it but pride themselves in their ability to sleep at night despite their contribution to it is the whole story behind why law lacks so much credibility and honor at all types and levels in 21st century America. As Jeff Goldblum says in “The Big Chill,” we can go for a long time without sex but we can’t go a day without a rationalization.
• Matthew Bowen at Prevention Works gives us a good review of current status of id theft. Urges against complacency and, as one who just went through credit card troubles because TJ Maxx let our info out, can second.
• Made2Measure makes sure we understand that strategic planning in management and policy means nothing without actionable goals and performance measures, and encourages us to get our cholesterol checked at the some time.
• And it wouldn't be a blog review without giving Grits for Breakfast the last word. As you know from his amazing coverage of what's been happening in the TX legis, he's a vital resource to state citizens trying to monitor the goings-on and keep pace with the lobbyists and other wheeler-dealers on crim just issues. Now, he's reporting that legis staff there have been giving him a hard time for letting people know about bills before they ever make it to the dog-and-pony shows known as committee hearings. I've been doing hearings for almost 30 years now, and he's right. He gives the average guy and gal the chance to play on a level field, and those little whiners on the committee staffs are really showing what they're about. If every state had Grits, if the Beltway types could just be washed away (pause for thoughtful smile), then our policies might actually have not just more light but more bright. Hang in there, Grits. Too many of us appreciate you to let those goobers get to you.