Prison nation. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has voted to increase sentences for bribery crimes . The proposed changes will be submitted to Congress on May 1 and unless rejected, go into effect on November 1:

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which has described public-corruption offenses as crimes of "internal terrorism," has adopted new federal guidelines to increase prison terms for those convicted of federal bribery charges — some by more than 50 percent. It also voted to more than triple to 10 years — the maximum allowed under the law — the prison term for persons convicted of possessing destructive devices, such as shoulder-fired missiles, rockets and launchers.

Spokesman Michael Courlander said the amended guidelines provide harsher penalties based on whether a defendant is an elected public official, a public official or a nonpublic official, adding that the average sentence for a public official who takes a bribe will increase more than 50 percent, "with the prospect of a much greater increase."

...Mr. Courlander said the commission also voted to allow the courts to depart above the guidelines for possession of destructive devices that create a risk to the public; increased by 50 percent the sentences for felons who use body armor in a crime of violence or drug trafficking; and increased the penalties for other crimes, including second-degree murder, attempted murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter involving reckless operation of a vehicle.

by TChris

Trial by media is a way of life in the United States. A handful of cases (like Kobe Bryant's or Scott Peterson's) receive nationwide attention, but local media place many other trials in the public spotlight. The struggle to balance the right to a fair trial and the media's right to report on a public trial is a familiar one in our courts.

The United States isn't the only judicial system wrestling with that balance. South Africa is confronting similar issues as it considers the impact of its Bill of Rights on the criminal justice system, including the issue of trial by media.

A South African law professor, speaking at a symposium Monday, called on the media and the judiciary "to get together and work out guidelines for reporting" on criminal cases in the aftermath of cases in which the media had "jumped on the bandwagon and reported on criminal matters" before they were tried in court. Some of those cases were dismissed.

She quoted a judgment by Judge Kees van Dijkhorst in which he said trial by newspaper was objectionable as it would lead to disrespect of the law. The judge said if the mass media was allowed to usurp the function of the court, it would lead to some cases not being tried. The public would then be led to believe that it was easy to find the truth in the media and subsequently disrespect the process of the law, he added.

Taking the war against drunk driving to the next ridiculous level, states are now passing laws that require persons convicted of driving under the influence to put special "scarlet letter" license plates on their vehicles to let the world know about it. The trend started in Ohio.

A new state law in Ohio requires judges to brand convicted drunk drivers with special “scarlet letter” license plates — with red numbers on a yellow background so other motorists will know exactly what they’ve done. Though the crimson-numbered plates have been a sentencing option for the past 37 years, Ohio Municipal Judge John Adkins was one of the few to use it as punishment for DUI before the state law mandate went into effect.

A similar law is working its way through the Illinois legislature.

What about the innocent spouse, friend or child of the driver who takes the car out for a spin? What right does the state have for branding them? If a person is a dangerous driver, take away their license. If they are licensed, let them alone. And leave their property alone.

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Pharmacies in Canada will soon be provided with Government marijuana to dispense to patients:

Officials are organizing a pilot project in British Columbia, modelled on a year-old program in the Netherlands, that would allow medical users to buy marijuana at their local drugstore. Currently, there are 78 medical users in Canada permitted to buy Health Canada marijuana, which is grown in Flin Flon, Man. The 30-gram bags of dried buds, sold for $150 each, now are sent by courier directly to patients or to their doctors.

But the department is changing the regulations to allow participating pharmacies to stock marijuana for sale to approved patients without a doctor's prescription, similar to regulations governing so-called morning-after pills, emergency contraceptives that can be obtained directly from a pharmacist without the need for a doctor's signature.

The quality of the pot isn't up to snuff yet, but the Government promises it's working on the problem.

A department spokeswoman says tests are under way to improve the marijuana after numerous complaints from users. "We are taking the concerns of users seriously," said Aggie Adamczyk.

by TChris

If local crime rates seem too high, there's an easy way to solve the problem: Stop reporting the crimes.

Police in Atlanta recently revealed that reports of 22,000 crimes in that city were missing. But the problem isn't confined to Atlanta.

In New York, a police captain was accused of routinely downgrading crime reports so he'd look good in the eyes of his superiors. Philadelphia's Sex Crimes Unit dismissed as non-crimes several thousand reports of rape in 1999. And in Baltimore, an information technology worker quit in December over claims the city's crime reporting was wildly inaccurate.

The extent of the problem is unclear. Only a few cities, including Atlanta, Boston, and New Orleans, have ordered an independent audit of crime reporting. But the practice is sufficiently widespread to cast doubt on the reliability of the FBI's crime statistics, which depend upon the accuracy of reports made by local law enforcement agencies.

Reform may begin with police officers who are tired of watching their superiors take credit for crime reduction that hasn't actually happened.

In New York, 70 sergeants rallied in front of a Queens station house with a 15-foot inflatable rat this month as they demanded the ouster of Capt. Sheldon Howard, who they say reduces the severity of crimes so his statistics look better than they are.

by TChris

The Justice Department wants more money for its witness protection program so that it can protect "witnesses who give key testimony in terrorism cases."

It doesn't seem a bad deal to be a protected witness, if you don't mind a lifetime of obscurity. The U.S. Marshalls claim never to have lost a protected witness who "followed the rules," and the pay isn't bad.

Witness families are paid an average of about $60,000 a year until they get jobs in their new communities. The Marshals Service helps them find housing, work and schools for the kids, and taps into a secure national network of doctors and other professionals to provide various services. They help witnesses obtain new Social Security numbers, open bank accounts and find an appropriate church, synagogue or mosque.

Among the Bush Administration's new drug war plans: Spending $25 million to test high school students for drug use. First off, drug testing is ineffective:

Despite the administration's claim that mandatory drug testing curbs adolescent drug use, a recent federal study of 76,000 students by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research paints a far different picture. According to the study's findings, published in the Journal of School Health, there is no difference in the level of illegal drug use between students in schools that test for drugs and those in schools that do not.

"Drug testing of students in schools does not deter use," states a University of Michigan news release summarizing the findings of the four-year study, the first national, large-scale survey ever to assess student drug testing. "At each grade level studied -- 8, 10, and 12 -- the investigators found virtually identical rates of drug use in schools that have drug testing and the schools that do not."

More importantly, students should not have to shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door:

Though random student drug testing may sound like a "silver bullet" in the
administration's campaign to discourage adolescent drug use, it opens a
"Pandora's Box" of practical, ethical and financial questions. Students
should not be taught that they must abandon their constitutional liberties
at the school door or that they must submit to an invasion of their privacy
because some leaders in Washington are willing to write off an entire
generation of students as potential criminals in their overzealous "war" on
drugs.

The Government is seeking to expand the witness protection program to include witnesses in terror cases. Ever wonder what the requirements are? The AP lists them here.

Talk about the absurdity of our federal drug laws....

Miguel Mendoza Palominos grew up in extreme poverty. He was shoeless throughout his childhood and often without a roof over this head. He did not go to school and has never been able to read or write. At times, his mother sent him to beg for food. His alcoholic father played little or no role in the family's day-to-day struggle for existence. At age 21, Palominos came to California from his village deep in Mexico on the promise of "agriculture" work that would enable him to better support his mother and sisters.

Only after being delivered to a remote area of Tehama County and tasked with watering marijuana plants was he aware of the job's precise nature. He was never paid, and when the camp was raided two months after his arrival by sheriff's deputies, he was the only one of five "irrigators" caught. A jury found him guilty in November of manufacturing 1,000 or more plants and Palominos, now 23, was sentenced Wednesday in Sacramento federal court to 10 years behind bars.

After he serves 8 1/2 years, Mr. Palominos will be deported to Mexico:

"When Mr. Palominos is done swabbing prison floors, somewhere between 2010 and 2014, he will be given a one-way ticket back to poverty," defense attorney Timothy Zindel noted in a court document. "The ones who exploited him are out there somewhere today carrying on business as usual."

The prosecutor, Samuel Wong, thinks the sentence is fair. In fact, he's made a specialty of going after Mexican immigrant grunt workers.

by TChris

In most of the country, little attention is paid to the Border Patrol. Taxpayers might begin to pay greater attention if they notice that the Border Patrol is now the largest uniformed police force in the country, at a cost of $20 billion over the past decade. The agency will soon spend another $10 million to add 260 agents, unmanned aircraft and more detention space in Arizona.

Is this money well spent? Dramatic increases in Border Patrol resources haven't been effective in the past.

Although the number of agents has more than tripled, thousands of undocumented immigrants cross the border each day and hundreds of them die each year. A decade after the start of [Operation Gatekeeper], arrests have dropped to 900,000 last year from 1.2 million in 1993.

It may take 16,000 agents to fully patrol the border, but a General Accounting Office study concludes that Operation Gatekeeper, started in the 1990's, did not clearly reduce the number of illegal entries along the southwestern border. It did, however, made illegal entry a riskier proposition, leading to an increase in deaths.

As a record number of immigrants tried crossing through Arizona, the Border Patrol increased the number of agents by 666 percent, and the death count rapidly climbed. In 1998, Border Patrol agents in Arizona recorded 28 deaths in the Yuma and Tucson sectors. Last year, the agency counted more than 150, though an independent count by The Arizona Republic came up with 205.

Treating illegal entry as a criminal justice problem that can be solved with more Border Patrol agents and some unmanned aircraft is doomed to failure. In the meantime, taxpayers will continue to pay the rapidly growing cost of enforcement and people seeking a better life in the United States will continue to die in the Arizona desert.

This is hilarious--Police Auctions online at StealItBack.Com. It's the Ebay of law enforcement confiscation. Need gardening supplies? Buy them from the cops who took them away from another gardener. Check out this available grow light. Or this sales pitch:

Thinking about growing some exotic plants and flowers? Then you will need this Sunlight Supply grow light ballast. It is a 430 watt ballast and is for use with sodium bulbs.

Actually, some of the electronic deals aren't bad, although if the item doesn't work, it's your tough luck. Then again, imagine what you might find in the back of an old stereo that doesn't work. Consider the lawsuit if you buy something here and then get arrested for possession of stolen property.

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The Denver Post has begun a new series examining the drug war . Adam Brickner, director of Denver's Office of Drug Strategy, argues that substance abuse prevention must be the top priority:

Substance abuse and addiction not only cause significant harm to Colorado families, but also carry a hefty price tag for our community. Colorado loses roughly $4.4 billion annually and Denver loses $1.5 billion annually in productivity, medical costs and criminal justice costs, in addition to the incalculable toll in human suffering.

University of Denver law professor Robert Hardaway says we are stuck in a quagmire:

Every year, more than 400,000 Americans die as the result of tobacco use. Alcohol abuse results in the deaths of another 110,640 Americans, including 16,653 alcohol-related traffic deaths. Alcohol is a major factor in more than half of all homicides and rapes, 62 percent of assaults, and 30 percent of suicides. According to the Cato Institute, based on deaths per 100,000 users, "tobacco kills 650, alcohol 150, heroin 80, and cocaine 4." If an observer from another planet - say, Mars - were to analyze these statistics, he might be surprised to learn that out of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, only the others are criminalized in the United States.

Even more preposterous, says Hardaway, are the financial and other costs of the drug war:

• The expenditure of more than $80 billion annually to arrest and incarcerate hundreds of thousands of citizens, using large chunks of America's scarce jail capacity and necessitating the early release of murderers, rapists and child molesters.

• The imposition of thousands of raids, searches and wiretaps on American citizens;

• The forfeiture of billions of dollars of potential tax revenues to organized crime;

• The commission of more than one-fifth of all property crime in the United States, amounting to billions of dollars annually, by addicts seeking money for drugs made artificially expensive by criminalization;

• The corruption and undermining of our political system, particularly at the local level.

As for tangible results, Hardaway notes they are sorely lacking: