To add to TChris' excellent post about this yesterday: For any variety of reasons, good people can commit bad, even horrible crimes. The question is, if they have demonstrated real reform in prison, should the parole board be allowed to deny them release solely because of the severity of their crime?

The New York Times explores this issue today in To More Inmates, Life Term Means Dying Behind Bars.

....driven by tougher laws and political pressure on governors and parole boards, thousands of lifers are going into prisons each year, and in many states only a few are ever coming out, even in cases where judges and prosecutors did not intend to put them away forever.

Indeed, in just the last 30 years, the United States has created something never before seen in its history and unheard of around the globe: a booming population of prisoners whose only way out of prison is likely to be inside a coffin.

Say hello to Microgram, the monthly publication of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Enjoy! [hat tip to Allen at NORML.)

Reason has more on Microgram's becoming available to the public.

Via Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (via e-mail):

The GAO put out a report yesterday looking at the numerous ways people convicted on drug charges lose federal benefits. Of particular note is that they state that denying financial aid to students with drug convictions not only hurts the determined students themselves, but makes our streets less safe by increasing crime and hampers America's economic productivity by reducing earnings and driving up spending on other social programs.

The full GAO report is available here (pdf). Denying financial aid to students because of a drug conviction is a stupid policy and fiscally irresponsible.

Readers Digest, a predictably conservative publication for decades, may be changing its stripes on at least one issue: Three Strikes Laws. This article, Why Three Strikes Laws Don't Work, appears at page 152 of the October issue.

Convinced that too many judges were going easy on violent recidivists, Congress enacted federal "mandatory minimum" sentences two decades ago, mainly targeting drug crimes. Throughout the 1990s, state legislatures and Congress kept upping the ante, passing new mandatory minimums, including "three strikes and you're out" laws. The upshot was a mosaic of sentencing statues that all but eliminated judicial discretion, mercy, or even common sense.

Now we are living with the fallout.

The magazine also has reader comments on the article, asking the question:

The latest study on violent crime by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has just been released. Violent crime is at the lowest level since the agency began keeping records 32 years ago.

The LA Times has more. The Justice Policy Institute (press relase via e-mail) says:

We should use the opportunity presented by this good news to reject the pandering of the past, and overzealous spending on incarceration and law enforcement and instead begin investing in community-based policing and local organizations that succeed in increasing public safety," said Jason Ziedenberg, Executive Director of the Justice Policy Institute. "Rather than promote the 'crime crisis of the week,' we need to consider what states and localities are doing to reduce incarceration, reduce crime and build communities."

by Last Night in Little Rock

As TChris wrote yesterday, apparently believing that the War on Terror is sufficiently won, the FBI is now restarting an emphasis on adult porn investigations as reported in today's Washington Post.

Sentencing Law and Policy has a thoughtful response to Jonathan Turley's op-ed in the Washington Post on shaming punishments as an alternative to incarceration. Professor Berman says:

....given the questionable efficacy of our traditional approaches to punishment and our over-reliance on incarceration (background here), I am quite open to greater use of alternative punishments, including mild shaming sanctions, especially when they are imposed in lieu of an extended imprisonment term.

Turley, in constrast, opined:

by TChris

Why is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales making the FBI's new "anti-obscenity squad" a top priority?

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

The war on corporate crime must also have ended in victory. Is there nothing left to vex the Justice Department but dirty movies?

by Last Night in Little Rock

The Department of Justice's Inspector General has issued a report, just posted on NY Times.com, that FBI agents "frequently violate" informant handling rules designed in the 1990s to curb abuses by informants.

by TChris

Posting sex offender registries on the web provides a doubtful benefit to communities. Individuals who want to reoffend often move without registering, while those who seek to obey the rules risk becoming the targets of vigilantes.

Michael Mullen has confessed to killing two sex offenders in Washington.

"Mullen also said that he had planned the murders for some time and that on July 13, 2005, he had accessed the Whatcom County Sheriff's sex offender Web site, and from that selected at least one of the two victims," the release said.

As is typical throughout the state, the Web site includes the residences of sex offenders who are required to register with local authorities.

Publicizing conduct for which punishment has been imposed and completed hampers rehabilitation. It also encourages harassment and violence, as this case illustrates.

by TChris

Asking mental health professionals whether a delusional woman who drowned her children knew the difference between right and wrong invites speculation.

My own belief is that no forensic psychiatrist can objectively answer the law's narrow question yes or no. There is no "truth" of the matter. Our science cannot yet map the psychotic experience of reality or measure its correspondence to the reality of the law's simplifying assumptions. The narrow right-from-wrong question may seem clear and obvious, but it is premised on assumptions that neither science nor philosophy can verify.

In a commentary published in the Psychiatric Times, Dr. Alan Stone argues that this common touchstone of the “insanity defense” asks the wrong question -- and suggests that no “right question” can easily be formulated.

Excellent news for medical marijuana patients in California:

The new policy, by the California Highway Patrol, states that an "individual is to be released and the marijuana is not to be seized" if the person qualifies under state law to possess marijuana for medicinal purposes. It also says that officers "shall not conduct traffic enforcement stops for the primary purpose of drug interdiction" involving the authorized use of medical marijuana.

A similar policy seems to be underway in Denver where police have agreed not to charge a medical pot patient on whom marijuana was found - and to return the pot to him.