Welcome, New NASC Readers

I wish I could say I'm over being pooped from the recent National Association of Sentencing Commissions conference (kindly referenced and nicely linked by Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy here), but I got to follow it up with a 6:00-5:30 meeting day at work. Not nearly the fun it sounds like. I'll try to get back to normal tomorrow, but for now, let me thank Ben Barlyn for his usual kindness in keeping the site from going black. And let me welcome any new readers who have picked up this blog as part of their exposure at the NASC conference (exposure to the blog--it wasn't that kind of conference). We did have a really thoughtful panel on blogging in sentencing policy and how it can be used to develop better networking and information-sharing among corrections sentencing types. Everyone always loves the conference because it's a rare chance to do that kind of networking and sharing, and, as I discussed at the conference, it is also disappointing because it IS only one time a year. One of the things this blog has tried to be in its short life is a daily NASC conference, with info, reports, commentary, ideas, planning for our corr sent future. I hope those of you visiting for the first time will become regulars and maybe even join in. Read what we've got here and on the sides, tell us what you think, send us your ideas and contributions and comments. We can keep identities secret if you wish. We just would like to keep the momentum of the conference going and maybe extend it in some directions that NASC usually feels it can't risk because of its need to always balance everything, regardless of the worthiness of the sides being balanced. Most of all please come back, not every day necessarily, although we can use the hits. Make this a place where everybody knows your name . . . . well, if not "Cheers" at least a good place to settle in and settle up.

[And, no, I couldn't completely let a couple of stories go by. Here's a good post with links from Psychology and Crime News on the impact of full moons on crime rates . . . meaning there isn't really any impact, but it's a lot of fun to think about and other reasons why the idea resists actual data. And here's a TECHNOCORRECTIONS-related post on using both bioengineering and pharmaceuticals to tailor-make anti-depressants. For you newcomers wondering what TECHNO is and what tailor-made anti-depressants have to do with what we do, just think about how, if you can influence behavior of the depressed by discovering their genotype and then structuring pharmaceutical remedies to influence their brain cells and chemicals, and then think about how dopamine and other brain chems are the basis of addictions which could conceivably be tailored as well (and in fact already are being developed). And that's just the start, as our regular readers know. Remember, y'all come back now, ya hear?]