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Other News |
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MAP - Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
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Media Awareness Project Drug News
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US: Web: Where Do We Go From Here, Politically?
DrugSense Weekly, 07 Nov 2008 - OK, we have a new President, probably a new direction, lots of new possibilities (and also the possibility that nothing will change). Putting aside temporarily my usual mantra that our efforts must be to motivate the people rather than count on politicians...
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US: Web: Take Handcuffs Off the Economic Recovery
DrugSense Weekly, 24 Oct 2008 - A month ago, who would have thought that the Bush Administration would order the partial nationalization of the nation's banks to fix credit markets and support the economy? Maybe other innovative, even "radical," ideas are in order. Unless we come up with new ideas to sell cars and durable goods to fire up the economy, collapsing domestic auto sales threaten tens of thousands of jobs. In addition, the recession will cause shrinking government revenue at every level. Even last spring 18 states were predicting reduced budgets in FY 2009. Unless new revenues are found, we will soon see the furloughs and wholesale firing of teachers, nurses, and emergency first responders; closed schools, libraries and hospitals; crumbling roads unfixed; and broken bridges closed to traffic.
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US NY: OPED: Mandatory Minimums Unjust - and They Don't Work
Buffalo News, 17 Oct 2008 - This election year, crime and drug issues seem to be off the table. Yet in a campaign season two decades ago, Congress made a hasty mistake that continues to plague our justice system today. In the weeks before the 1986 election, I was part of the congressional clamor for tough mandatory drug sentences after the cocaine overdose death of basketball star Len Bias.
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US: Lessons From the History of the Prison Boom
Boston Review, 01 Jul 2008 - LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF THE PRISON BOOM In March 1965, at the height of his popularity and power, President Johnson launched a major offensive against crime, which he called a "malignant enemy in America." Although violent crime had declined markedly since the Great Depression, it was starting to surge under Johnson's watch, and his conservative critics-following the lead of Barry Goldwater, who had made fighting crime a centerpiece of his failed but galvanizing presidential bid-were eager to pounce. To outflank them, LBJ ordered his attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach to chair a blue-ribbon commission to draft a national crime strategy. "I will not be satisfied," the President warned, borrowing from Goldwater's paternalistic playbook, "until every woman and child in this Nation can walk any street, enjoy any park . . . and live in any community at any time of the day or night without fear of being harmed." He declared "a thorough and effective war against crime."
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US CA: Column: Drug Laws' Absence Of Justice
San Francisco Chronicle, 06 Mar 2008 - When Attorney General Michael Mukasey was working to persuade Congress to stop a U.S. Sentencing Commission decision to allow federal judges to reduce the sentences of some 19,500 federal inmates serving time for crack cocaine offenses, he told the Fraternal Order of Police that federal crack offenders "are some of the most serious and violent offenders in the federal system." Drug lords, rejoice. If your average crack offender represents the most dangerous convicts in the federal system, then a lot of small-time hoods and mid-level lackeys who don't pack heat are warming prison beds that should be meant for kingpins and their armed henchmen.
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