News and Blogs Together, Wednesday, May 30, 2007

• Good story at Christian Science Monitor on the different amounts states recompense wrongly convicted inmates, with TX surprisingly among the better states (I hope Grits for Breakfast heard me say that), comparatively anyway, and FL remaining the very questionable state that it seems to like to be. . . .
• Ingo Keilitz at Made2Measure has discovered Tom Tyler’s work on why people obey laws—because they judge them and the process that enforces them as fair—and recognizes the problems for the entire process, courts and sentencing especially, if laws and those who make and apply them are seen as illegitimate and unjust. . . .
• Very few middle schoolers starting their drinking early get their booze from commercial outlets, and over a third got it from parent or grandparent homes or those of friends. . . .
• Via Mind Hacks, a study of teen males for 20 years shows that those with cognitive difficulties were more likely to engage in violent offenses and those with higher abilities, in non-violent offenses. Lots of self-reporting and maybe no reporting but raises again the possibility of profiling and using MRIs along with self-reports to ID possible offenders before they offend. . . .
• While you’re at Mind Hacks, check out the post on the growth of neurotech industry ($1.7b. in venture capital and 10% growth in revenue in 2006) and tell me what you think the prospects are for TECHNOCORRECTIONS in the future as they develop more and more applications for corrections sentencing. . . .
• At Psychology and Crime News, a post on a new study showing that, yes, indeed, juries do deliberate well on average and more on jurors’ takes on their experiences. . . .
• High-level execs and criminals. All that different? Well, maybe not on psych scales. Could just be the result of being successful and not. . . .
• “Emergency Powers Act” invoked in AR (Arkansas, not Arizona) in response to its overcrowded prison situation there. . . .
• Deniers and obstructionists in MI suddenly finding value in alternative sanctions when the other alternative is the early release option. . . .
• Finally, speaking of deniers, insights here into deniers and obstructionists and their childhood upbringing that may be useful as we try to reason with the people denying the corr sent futures that are already blooming in most states. (Actually, the blog with this post is a new one on denial that all of us in corr sent policy should bookmark and check daily. Yes, I already have.)