NewsTrust - Prisons - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Zakaria: Incarceration nation

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Fareed Zakaria - Mar. 30 (Opinion) - Something caught my eye the other day. Pat Robertson, the high priest of the religious right, had some startling things to say about drugs. "I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol," Mr. Robertson said in a recent interview. "I've never used marijuana and I don't intend to, but it's just one of those things that I think. This war on drugs just hasn't succeeded." The reason Robertson is for legalizing marijuana is that it has created a prison problem in America that is well beyond what most Americans imagine.

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Mass incarceration and criminal justice in America.

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - Jan. 23 (Opinion) - A prison is a trap for catching time. Good reporting appears often about the inner life of the American prison, but the catch is that American prison life is mostly undramatic—the reported stories fail to grab us, because, for the most part, nothing happ

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Call Off the Global Drug War

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jimmy Carter - Jun. 17 (Opinion) - To make drug policies more humane and more effective, the U.S. should rehabilitate non-violent, casual drug users, and undermine the power of organized crime.

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Crime Victims United of California: A powerful voice in state politics

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Joshua Page - Jun. 04 (Opinion) - If policymakers continue to follow the voices of expressly punitive victims rights advocates and ignore the opinions of those who promote alternative, less punitive conceptions of justice, California will not shrink its $9-billion prison system or alleviate its correctional crisis. The status quo will prevail. Let's hope this harrowing prediction doesn't come true.

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Cowardly, Stupid, and Tragically Wrong

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Dahlia Lithwick - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - In reversing one of its last principled positions—that American courts are sufficiently nimble, fair, and transparent to try Mohammed and his confederates—the administration surrendered to the bullying, fear-mongering, and demagoguery of those seeking to create two separate kinds of American law.

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The Abuse of Private Manning

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Mar. 15 (Editorial) - The treatment of the soldier accused of giving government files to WikiLeaks conjures creepy memories of how terror suspects were handled during the Bush years.

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Executed man's mother urges ban on exports profiting from death penalty

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Owen Bowcott - Feb. 13 () - Patches Rhode believes her son Brandon died in agony after anaesthetic supplied by UK wholesaler appeared ineffective.

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The American Debate: A death-row opponent: Be still, my heart

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Philadelphia Inquirer - By Dick Polman - Dec. 12 (Opinion) - Ever since a self-described loser named Steven Hayes went on trial this autumn for the murders of a Connecticut doctor's wife and two daughters, my gut has been warring with my brain.

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Crime and punishment in America: Rough justice

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 22 (Opinion) - America is different from the rest of the world in lots of ways, many of them good. One of the bad ones is its willingness to lock up its citizens (see our briefing). One American adult in 100 festers behind bars (with the rate rising to one in nine for young black men). Its imprisoned population, at 2.3m, exceeds that of 15 of its states. No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free. The rate of incarceration is a fifth of America’s level in Britain, a ninth in Germany and a twelfth in Japan.

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Obama Should Tackle the Jails

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Newsweek - By Ellis Cose - Jan. 29 (Opinion) - The subject deserves presidential attention. But to tackle it requires a willingness to risk being tarred as soft on crime. That's an especially difficult issue for a black president: for Obama to speak the simple truth—that our incarceration practices are expensive, ineffective, and border on insanity—would open him up to the charge of pandering to minorities. We saw that a few months back when Obama initially sided with black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whom a white cop had arrested for breaking into his own home. The president's relatively mild statement—that the cop had acted "stupidly"—drew so much fire he had to backpedal. Precisely because of his race, this president must walk on eggshells when approaching a racially charged subject. Much safer to talk about deficits and jobs.

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