I don’t know about you but I’m sick and tired of reading about the “bailout.” A day does not go by without being reminded how much those already loaded with cash and goodies receive yet another Christmas present from we the taxpayers. I guess the proverbial “last straw” for me was the report by the Associated Press that asked 21 banks that had received at least $1 billion from the government four simple questions: “How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in…
Blog Dec 22, 2008
We can’t just shoot ‘em
California’s growing budget crisis and prison lawsuits are focusing more attention on a serious policy question: Are there better ways to reduce crime and treat criminals than by spending $36,000 in taxpayer dollars every year to lock up each low-level property and drug possession offender in state prison? California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reports show the state now imprisons 30,000 offenders sentenced for non-invasion property crimes or simple drug possession, at a cost…
Newsroom Dec 18, 2008
Just Released! Fall 2008 Justice Policy Journal
Just Released! Fall 2008 Justice Policy Journal: CJCJ’s Premiere Online Academic Journal As one of the first online criminal justice journals with contributions from renowned scholars, the Justice Policy Journal (JPJ) is quickly becoming among the most widely read and discussed journals in the field. The JPJ provides an international forum for researchers and policymakers to examine current justice issues and promote innovative policy solutions in a web based format that maintains the…
Recent reports by the W. Haywood Burns Institute and NAACP deploring disproportionate minority confinement in juvenile facilities raise an important ongoing issue. It is true, as the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice’s own investigations agree, that black and brown youth receive increasingly harsh treatment as they move from arrest through sentencing stages that the juvenile justice system must address. But there’s another troubling issue. A key CJCJ mission has been to reduce the use of…
Blog Dec 13, 2008
Abolish the Office of National Drug Control Policy
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy was established in the early 1980s, funded in 1986, and issued its first National Drug Control Strategy in 1987. In the middle of a massive crack-cocaine and heroin epidemic generating rising overdose deaths and dealer violence, the Strategy prioritized chasing around casual users, mostly of marijuana, on the grounds that moderate drug users set a bad “moral… example.” In the two decades during which the ONDCP and its “drug czar” have…