One of the reasons I enjoy teaching is that allows me to look at the strange and wily land that exists inside the academic bubble. To say it's disconnected from the real world doesn't even begin to catch it.
Today I noticed, on SL&P, an entry titled, "We should stop putting women in jail. For anything."
The essay, by a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, makes exactly the case stated in its title. But the extent to which it goes to paint criminals as victims is remarkable even by the bizarre standards of academic life. Sample:
What purpose is served by subjecting the most disempowered, abused and nonviolent women to the perpetually negative environment of prisons?
Ummm.....well......to punish them for crimes they committed? To deter them? How about this juicy case? Ripe for a stiff term of community service?
Plus, you gotta love phrases like, "the negative environment of prisons."
I took after Prof. Margareth Etienne for her Twilight Zone argument that the SCOTUS denied cert in the acquitted conduct case because it wanted a murkier case to announce a broader rule -- notwithstanding the there's nothing like a majority for the narrower rule. But this one might have Prof. Etienne beat.
P.S. Someone should remind this professor that there might be an Equal Protection problem if men can get imprisoned but, categorically, women can't.
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