Smoke and Judges

Couple of interesting posts up currently at The Situationist with relevancy to corrections sentencing. One emphasizes the situational contexts in which cigarette smoking becomes attractive, with immediate applications to drug use or other deviant behavior. The other is a follow-up to a recent post on the situational contexts of judicial decisions, specifically the impact of campaign contributions (and the “arms race” that is entailing now) and court outcomes. Very good graphs and stats. I liked the part where business groups are now giving more than attorneys and where a justice the business groups didn’t like for tort decisions was attacked through a “soft on crime” campaign. One more very good argument for appointive (and term-limited) judicial positions.