Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Harmony in Flux

  Published: July 24, 2007, 12:05 pm

  Tags: Criminal Justice, Education, Sexual Ethics, Trends

  Over at Reason's Hit & Run, the Agitator, Radley Balko, proclaims "Childhood Now A Sex Crime." What? From The Oregonian:  The two boys tore down the hall of Patton Middle School after lunch, swatting the bottoms of girls as they ran -- what some kids later said was a common form of greeting. But bottom-slapping is against

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• Too Weird for Words

  Published: July 27, 2007, 4:09 pm

  Tags: Arts Media, Criminal Justice

  What do the following have in common? 1) Michael Jackson2) Filipinos3) The Backstreet Boys4) Prisoners Yes, it's creepy, and you might not believe it, but the BBC sure does.

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• How Life Imitates the World Series

  Published: August 7, 2007, 8:58 am

  Tags: Criminal Justice, Sports

  incapable of error, while justice is more than proper procedure it is never less. Rules and safeguards -- what More called "the law" -- are there for a purpose: to protect us from abuse of power. When you decide that "technicalities" like actual proof or adherence to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure can be

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• Cruel & Unusual Punishment

  Published: August 7, 2007, 1:35 pm

  Tags: Criminal Justice

  Apparently, the Bangkok police have a discipline problem: officers parking in the wrong place, showing up late for work, littering, etc. According to "Pongpat Chayaphan, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division,"  warnings and reprimands aren't getting the job done. So, he's resorting to drastic measures: "No matter

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• Romans 13

  Published: August 7, 2007, 2:38 pm

  Tags: Apologetics Theology, Criminal Justice

  I think it's high time we discuss Romans 13. In the midst of a big commenter hoo-hah about Regis' post yesterday, labrialumn declared:Gina, Paul affirms the death penalty in Romans 13. And God Himself has not changed.Back in May, Anne posted Who Would Jesus Kill? Let's Find Out... which resulted in another commenter dust-up of sorts. During that

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• More on the Dancing Inmates

  Published: August 8, 2007, 11:28 am

  Tags: Criminal Justice, Restorative Justice

  Once Filipino prisoners participated in the cleanup of the worst oil spill in the Philippines by shaving off their hair, and now, as Zoe wrote a while back, they are participating in reenacting musical acts from Michael Jackson, Queen, Sister Act and Black Eyed Peas. The production is performed by over 1,500 inmates of the Cebu Provincial

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• A Success Story...But a False Hope?

  Published: August 10, 2007, 1:49 pm

  Tags: New York Times, Criminal Justice

  Given that I've given up on the idea of prison as rehabilitative, what does it mean when someone actually is rehabilitated in prison? That's my takeaway after reading yesterday's NY Times article about Donnie Andrews and Fran Boyd, he a former felon who served 17 years for killing a drug dealer and she a former heroin addict who saw her son become

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• On Not Demonizing Mothers Who Kill

  Published: August 14, 2007, 4:14 pm

  Tags: Reproductive Justice, Criminal Justice

  Cara at the Curvature has an interesting post up about women who kill their newborn infants or who allow them to die from neglect. Neonaticide, of course, is nothing new. In Eicha, the Book of Lamentations, which is read on the Jewish day of mourning Tisha B'Av, women (there a metaphor for the felled city of Jerusalem)eat their own infants out of

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• Why Are So Many People in Prison?

  Published: August 15, 2007, 8:52 am

  Tags: Criminal Justice, Politics Government

  in state prisons are violent criminals, convicted of homicide, rape, or robbery. But the other two thirds consist mainly of property and drug offenders. Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black

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• No Perfection in Presidential Politics

  Published: August 15, 2007, 5:20 pm

  Tags: 2008 Democratic Primary, Criminal Justice, The War On Some Classes Of People Who Use Some Drugs

  come to symbolize racial injustice in criminal justice. He said that if he were to become president, he would support a commission to issue a report "that allows me to say that based on the expert evidence, this is not working and it's unfair and unjust. Then I would move legislation forward.Another useless study that would just get thrown on

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• Not that I Follow Such Things

  Published: August 16, 2007, 10:26 am

  Tags: Criminal Justice, The War On Some Classes Of People Who Use Some Drugs, Hollywood Gone Mad

  ...But apparently, in Hollywood, pregnant is the new super-thin and going to jail because of an act linked to a drug addiction, well that's just what everyone is doing (Lohan, most prominently and publicly). Doing pregnancy and jail together, as Nicole Richie is about to, now that's just plain trendsetting. Or so says HuffPo's Verena von Pfetten,

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• For the love of Allah?

  Published: August 17, 2007, 12:45 pm

  Tags: Criminal Justice, Religion Society, Trends

  Religious conversions in prison are not a new phenomenon. As Pat Nolan recently mentioned, it's the time when you're "sucking the carpet fibers" that you will most likely look for, and discover, God. And where else do you see such a large assortment of individuals down on their luck, humiliated, discouraged, disconnected... than in

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• Happily Ever After

  Published: August 19, 2007, 3:56 pm

  Tags: New York Times, Surprise Endings, Criminal Justice

  First an update on the stitches (not so happily ever after). They came out today but the gash isn't closed, so I'm for the next wehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifek. Hopefully they will impede my typing less than the stitches. In happier - and bigger - news, there's a follow-up to the rare story on rehabilitation through prison that I

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• California Eyewitness Identification Reform About to Land on Governor's Desk

  Published: August 20, 2007, 8:00 am

  Tags: Criminal Justice

  F. Terzano President The Justice Project Herman Atkins suffered for 12 years in a California prison for crimes he did not commit. Then DNA exonerated him. Mr. Atkins was a victim of faulty eyewitness identification. Mr. Atkins' wrongful conviction for rape and robbery began when the victim and a witness identified him as the perpetrator

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• Weekly Liptak Love: Gonzo & Capital Punishment

  Published: August 20, 2007, 10:19 am

  Tags: Hearts For Liptak, Criminal Justice, The Death Penalty

  (Times Select-shielded) criminal justice columns. Today, Liptak takes on the death penalty. Specifically, he exposes the provision in the recent reauthorization of the PATRIOT (blech) Act that allows the A.G. (Gonzo himself) to decide whether condemned men and women have had adequate legal representation, and that shortens the time period

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