Crime and entertainment at Franklin High

from the article by Rick Holmes in MetroWest Daily News:

When outrage-inducing incidents become media sensations, the authorities respond with the tools they have available. Educators point to politically popular “zero tolerance” policies. 

....Police charge the thugs with whatever laws they can find — even unlawful wire tapping — and set the wheels of justice turning. There will be lawyers and hearings and plea bargains, fines and probably time behind bars.

May 23, 2012 School, Story, Region: North America and Caribbean, Policy, Politics, Country:USA

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Smart on crime: Why reforming criminal justice is now a Conservative issue

from the article in The Economist:

....It is not only in Britain that criminal-justice reform has become a right-wing issue. The Right on Crime initiative, a creation of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a think-tank, counts leading Republicans such as Newt Gingrich and Jeb Bush among the fans of its campaign to divert more offenders from prisons to non-custodial sentences. Half of all American states voted to reduce the use of custody last year.

There is plenty of room for relaxation in punitive America, which locks up almost one in 100 people (England and Wales put away fewer than one in 500). But similar forces are at work in both places. Fiscal pressure is mounting. Overall crime rates are falling. And stubborn reoffending rates suggest that some things are not working.

Prisons are one of them. 

May 21, 2012 Country:England&Wales, Region: Europe, Region: North America and Caribbean, Policy, Politics, Country:USA

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