Probably the leading spokesmen for sentencing "reform" are no longer on the Left -- the Left having shown (in fits and spurts) that it realizes lower sentencing will produce more crime, but believing that Amerika has it coming because of its racist, classist, sexist and otherwise Really Mean ruling class. The class consists of people like Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions, Tom Cotton, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Heather MacDonald and anyone else who didn't have a poster of Che Guevara hanging in his or her dorm room. That the victims of increased crime are certain to be disproportionately minorities never seems to register with the Left. I guess Black Lives Don't Matter that much.
The more serious advocates for sentencing reform (which is actually mass sentencing reduction, although they understandably use a more opaque term) are those on the libertarian-left. I consider my pal Prof. Doug Berman one of their leading lights. Thus, at his urging, I would point readers to the discussion of the libertarian case for less incarceration taking place on the (now quite long) thread to this earlier post.
For now, I would note only two things. First, the idea that we'll have a less bloated, spendthrift government with less incarceration isn't uniformly working out too well, according to the news story in my most recent entry. Second, it will be my pleasure to have the chance to discuss these questions with Doug when we debate at Campbell Law School in Raleigh NC on April 11.
UPDATE: I have added the phrase "in fits and spurts" to the first sentence because, as has been pointed out to me, the Left does not uniformly admit that lower sentencing will produce more crime.
Bill, what is your basis for asserting that "the Left [has] shown that it realizes lower sentencing will produce more crime"? The #cut50 folks, who are making the call for the most aggressive approach to reducing incarceration and seems to be mostly folks on the Left, assert we can "safely and smartly reduce our incarcerated population by 50 percent over the next 10 years." This hardly seems like a concession that lower sentencing will produce more crime.
On another front, I remain eager to have you encourage libertarian-right folks to share their views on marijuana reform, especially at the federal level. I understand why social conservatives (and social liberals) are against marijuana reform, but I struggle to see how fiscal conservatives or true libertarians (on the left or the right) embrace blanket federal marijuana prohibition, especially at the federal level.
Doug --
"Bill, what is your basis for asserting that "the Left [has] shown that it realizes lower sentencing will produce more crime"? The #cut50 folks, who are making the call for the most aggressive approach to reducing incarceration and seems to be mostly folks on the Left, assert we can 'safely and smartly reduce our incarcerated population by 50 percent over the next 10 years.' This hardly seems like a concession that lower sentencing will produce more crime."
Ha! Note how slickly they put it. They say "safely and smartly" but they carefully avoid saying, "There will be absolutely no increase in crime."
One could believe that, overall, it's "smart" and "safe" to reduce incarceration, but that taking such a position is not a promise that there will never, in consequence, be additional crime.
Indeed, on the long thread I have referenced here, "Melissa" makes exactly this point: "I have an entirely different viewpoint on the cost benefit analysis of sentencing reform than you do. Society should accept whatever policy it determines best balances those costs and benefits. I think your position overestimates the risks by not taking into account factors that can mitigate the risk of recidivism and the benefits of sentencing reform."
Although I don't think Melissa is a hard Leftist (I don't know her), she sets forth expressly the notion that there are costs (i.e., recidivist crime) to any significant number of early releases, but sees them as being worth what she views as the benefits.
One other thing, Doug.
Will you join me in labelling as a point-blank lie the proposition that we can reduce incarceration by 50% without any cost in additional crime?
Because a point-blank lie is what it is.
I agree that everybody engages in a kind of wordsmithing here. But now I wonder what you are expected to hear from reasonable people. I cannot imagine any change in criminal justice policy (or any other policy) for which its promoters could honestly "promise that there will never ever, in consequence, be additional crime." (This is even true for massive increases in incarceration given the evidence that, via Texas Dept of CJ https://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/gokids/gokids_articles_children_impacted.html, "children of incarcerated parents are five times more likely than their peers to commit crimes." If we send a parent of two kids to prison, we may incapacitate that parent for a while but at the same time greatly increasing the likelihood two kids will become criminals.)
My point here was just to question what your first sentence suggested that the Left somehow had conceded -- i.e., that " lower sentencing will produce more crime." I do not think most folks advocating for lower sentence on the Left would concede this point. And now I am wondering if you think prominent folks on the Right who now actively support lower sentencing for at least some federal offenses --- e.g., Grover Norquist, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Charles Grassley, Jim Sensenbrenner, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, John Cornyn, Paul Ryan, Bob Goodlatte --- have been inclined to concede that "lower sentencing will produce more crime."
"I agree that everybody engages in a kind of wordsmithing here."
Maintaining that we can reduce incarceration by 50% and not see an increase in crime is not "wordsmithing." It's lying. Why won't you say so?
"But now I wonder what you are expect[ing] to hear from reasonable people."
I'm expecting to hear that, when an early released coke dealer (Callahan) murders three defenseless people, early release has been shown to have a fearsome, appalling price; and that before we do any more of it, like adopting the far more sweeping SRCA, we should hear a full, graphic, candid report of what all the costs of early release are going to be, including specifically (but not limited to) the number of neighborhood murders that will be committed by criminals who otherwise would still have been in prison.
Douglas stated: "Dept of CJ https://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/gokids/gokids_articles_children_impacted.html, "children of incarcerated parents are five times more likely than their peers to commit crimes." If we send a parent of two kids to prison, we may incapacitate that parent for a while but at the same time greatly increasing the likelihood two kids will become criminals.)"
Sentences like this are exactly why most debates are fruitless. Don't get me wrong, Douglas, I think you are generally an honest person. In fact, if I could make the short trip up to Columbus, I would love to take your class. However, this is as slick as it gets.
Any parent or person who spends 60 seconds thinking about this issue should be able to see it. One of my best friends in the world hit me in the head with a brick when my wife was pregnant with my son. He said, "Remember, your child will hear everything you tell him to do but he will learn the most from what he sees you do. Even if it is a phone call and you tell your wife to say you are not home."
What is it that these kids of felon parents are seeing? Is it REALLY a surprise that kids of felons are more likely to be felons? Is it really necessary to argue whether poor parents are the problem or that these parents were incarcerated?
I am not a spokesperson for "the Left" and doubt they would want me to be.
I do, however, agree that the legislature and public should be provided with information regarding the costs and benefits of proposed policies before enacting them; something that is not always present in legislation enacting crimes and punishments in the first place.
The Sentencing Commission's recent report on recidivism attributed 164 homicides over the course of 8 years to the 25,431 offenders studied. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this number was broken down to account for CH categories or years after release when the homicides were committed. Two factors that could help better answer your question of how many murders would be committed by individuals on early release.
If your concern is about prisoners being released early and committing new crimes, would you be agnostic about prospective only sentencing reform?
The SRCA does reduce some sentences, but the bill is not quite as "pro-criminal" as is sometimes reported. The SRCA increases the mandatory minimum for certain firearm offenses, imposes a mandatory minimum on domestic violence offenses and certain terrorism related offenses, and directs the Attorney General to inventory federal statutory offenses and regulatory offenses in a detailed report. The inventory seems like an initial step in addressing the issue of criminal offenses without a mens rea requirement.
Melissa --
"I am not a spokesperson for 'the Left' and doubt they would want me to be."
I never said you were. What I said was, "Although I don't think Melissa is a hard Leftist (I don't know her), she sets forth expressly the notion that there are costs (i.e., recidivist crime) to any significant number of early releases, but sees them as being worth what she views as the benefits."
That sentence could plausibly be interpreted to mean I think you're a Leftist but not a hard Leftist, true. But it also and equally plausibly could be interpreted to mean no more than what it says, to wit, that I don't think you're a hard Leftist.
As you have probably noticed by now, I'm a believer in literal language.
You also write, "If your concern is about prisoners being released early and committing new crimes, would you be agnostic about prospective only sentencing reform?"
Fair enough question. I am opposed to what is being palmed off as sentencing "reform" -- prospective or retrospective -- for a host of reasons, one of which is just pragmatism. What we are doing now and for the last 25 years has contributed to very significant crime reduction.
When you find something that works, keep doing it.
It's true that it has costs as well, and in numerous prior threads I have answered that argument to the point of tedium. The shortest answer is still the same: The best way to reduce incarceration is for people who are thinking about crime to refrain. It's not that hard.
I'm no more a saint than anyone else, but I've managed to go through my entire adult life without stealing stuff, selling drugs, swindling people, forcing sex on women, or settling my differences through violence.
If these simple guideposts would get followed, the prison population would shrink and shrink fast. It won't cost a dime and would improve the well-being of the country.
Bill, I will not call the folks behind #cut50 liars, because I think they believe it is possible to have half our current prison population and maintain our current crime levels. Indeed, I also think this is possible if we were to (1) legalize marijuana and decriminalize other drugs, (2) make much, much, much greater use of financial sanctions, shaming sanctions, forced military service, and technological means to incapacitate without use of prisons, (3) use technology to make guns and cars much safer so that they cannot work except when possessed by an authorized, non-intoxicated user.
Sadly, I am not expecting my own data-driven ideas of how to have less prison and less crime to be implemented anytime soon, and there is certainly a possibility that crime would increase even if all my ideas became a reality. But, because of my commitment to freedom and my distrust of government, I would like to try my ideas and see what happens.
Moreover, Bill, your last comment highlight that if Americans were to just behave better, the prison population would shrink and shrink fast. I also agree with that, and that is a big component of my philosophy. For various reasons, some biological and societal factors have led Americans to behave extra badly over the last 50 years (including presidents Nicon and Clinton), and my plans would I think go a long way to enhance the behavior of Americans.
Meanwhile Tarls, I am an honest person, and I would love to have you come sit in on my classes. (My marijuana reform seminar is a real hoot, but I think you would really like a lot of what I push my mostly liberal Bernie loving students to confront in their thinking about crime and punishment.). And part of my honesty is readily stressing that bad parenting contributes greatly to criminality. But so too does taking parents away from their children through incarceration. I cited the Texas Dept of CJ article to just make the point that one cannot simply say, as Bill often seeks to suggest, that more and more and more imprisonment will always in every way lead to less and less crime.
The comment regarding not being a spokesperson for "the Left" was a reference to the sentences preceding the ones you quote in your response. Professor Berman asked,"Bill, what is your basis for asserting that "the Left [has] shown that it realizes lower sentencing will produce more crime"? Your comment indicated that the Left has avoided admitting an increase in crime instead speaking in terms of safely and smartly reducing incarceration and then using my comment to link their ambiguous answer to my admission regarding recidivist crime amongst early release prisoners. The implication of your comment is that you are tagging "the Left" with my opinion. While I think honestly confronting the costs of any sentencing reform is necessary for good policy, I'm just an anonymous internet commenter interested in this policy debate whereas some of "the Left" you reference are established advocacy groups that are more informed on this issue than I. I'm not sure "the Left" would agree with my opinion and am not comfortable with my opinion being imputed to them.
You stated that "I am opposed to what is being palmed off as sentencing "reform" -- prospective or retrospective -- for a host of reasons, one of which is just pragmatism. What we are doing now and for the last 25 years has contributed to very significant crime reduction. When you find something that works, keep doing it." If the policy decision is maintaining the status quo or reforms, we should know not only the costs of reform, but the benefits of the status quo, so my question for you is how much crime has been reduced by the current federal mandatory minimums?
Douglas stated: "Meanwhile Tarls, I am an honest person, and I would love to have you come sit in on my classes. (My marijuana reform seminar is a real hoot, but I think you would really like a lot of what I push my mostly liberal Bernie loving students to confront in their thinking about crime and punishment.). And part of my honesty is readily stressing that bad parenting contributes greatly to criminality."
But where does it come in to play as far as your solutions? I do not mean this to be insulting, but it seems like lip service. I never hear from you and the rest of the soft on crime crowd that traditional values are the best crime fighters. In fact, those with traditional values are mocked and ridiculed (to be fair, not necessarily by you). I DEFINITELY do not hear any "solutions" based on this.
You stated: "But so too does taking parents away from their children through incarceration. I cited the Texas Dept of CJ article to just make the point that one cannot simply say, as Bill often seeks to suggest, that more and more and more imprisonment will always in every way lead to less and less crime.""
And this is what I mean. You are interpreting an article to mean something that is, in my opinion, disingenuous. Any parent can see beyond the data and know that the real problem is bad parenting. Those kids are not more likely to be incarcerated because their parents were in prison, they are more likely to be incarcerated because parents who go to prison are bad at parenting. The children are more likely to go to prison because they were taught the values of their parents; to lie, steal, cheat, and do what "feels good."
For example, a kid here in Kentucky was severely burned in the throat because she drank her parents' meth making chemicals. If she ends up a felon, is it because her parents went to prison or because she learned some awful lessons from them?
Is a child more likely to eventually go to prison because his father went there or because he routinely watched his father beat up people who cheated him on a drug deal?
Is a child more likely to end up in prison because his crack addict mother did or because he watched her sell herself for her next fix?
If you remember, I worked in the NYS prison system. A routine occurrence was to have children mule drugs in their pampers, underwear, etc. because they could not be searched. Is the father being in prison the problem or that his father and mother would use him for such a task?
Is prison REALLY the problem?
One more point.
The discussion above is counterproductive to your cause. You mentioned DWI as one crime where incarceration may not be the next solution. I am even open to that in theory.
The problems are that 1) We know it will not stop there. Just as a "moratorium" really means "abolition", DWI means "everyone we can get free, we will." Perhaps not you singular, but you plural. 2) The slickness of your interpretation of kids whose parents were incarcerated and the slickness of your answers in the other thread about data. If the data you have is not good enough (it's not), it is academics like you who should be getting knee deep to find the numbers to prove your theories. "Using the best data we have" is not good enough to overturn a system that is working on most levels. Again, I suspect the effort is not made because deep down, people like you know what the data will say.
It is just not convincing and people like Bill and I have every reason to not trust the intentions of the "reform" movement.
TarlsQtr --
Correct. I would oppose sentencing reform at least until I got what I have already requested, to wit, a full, graphic, honest report of what ALL the costs of early release are going to be, including specifically (but not limited to) the number of murders that will be committed by criminals who otherwise would still have been in prison.
The "reform" movement is not about to produce any such thing. That is where I get off the train. I will not be buying a change to a the present system until I know its full price.
The "reform" movement has shown how honest it is by relentlessly downplaying and dismissing the Wendell Callahan child murder/early release scandal. It refuses to say how many similar episodes we are likely to get under its reign, or how many we should tolerate. When I ask for a number, what I get is a filibuster (advertising itself as "nuance"). No number is ever produced.
The whole deal with this movement is to lead us down the garden path. They first trotted out the 19 year-old who goes to prison forever for smoking a joint. When it came out that next to no one is in federal prison for such an offense, they just kept on keepin' on. The sponsors of the current bill say it will apply only to the proverbial "low level, non-violent" offender, but the intellectual architects of the movement have acknowledged that they want, and are planning, releases far beyond that.
The reasons this movement cannot be trusted are not merely those related to its (kept quiet about, except in academia) ambitions. It's more fundamental than that. It's that the movement views the criminal as the victim (of a callous, punitive America) and our law (and culture and history) as the victimizer.
I do not look down on the country in any such way and I never will. I don't think it's up to America to put its tail between its legs and apologize to a bunch of hoodlums. I think it's up to the hoodlums to change their behavior.
When they do, we won't "need" sentencing reform. Until they do, we'd be fools to indulge it.
Tarls, you seem to be looking for binary answers when being truly knee deep in the data shows there is no single problem that causes crime nor a single answer to the problem. Bad parenting surely contributes significantly to crime, but so does bad schooling and hot weather and bad neighborhoods and access to firearms and bad experiences with the criminal justice system. Indeed, the clearest of all crime data shows that having more education reduces greatly the likelihood an individual with commit a serious crime, and thus increased state and federal spending on incarceration may impact future crime a lot due to correspondingly diminished spending on education. (Though, as you rightly realize, increased spending on education does not necessarily mean improved outcomes.)
A lack of critical nuance --- nuance that is essential to serious public policy --- is also to be found in your concession that my proposed DUI suggestion will turn into a jail break for everyone. No, it will turn into a jail-break for only those crimes that good data show can be better reduced without significant reliance on incarceration. The problem has been in recent decades that we have generally turned to expanding crime definitions and greater use of incarceration for any and every problem in society. This is why we have problems with over criminalization as well as overincarceration, and why I support mens rea reform and other needed efforts to cut down on the number of total crimes and the number of crimes that carry a threat of extended incarceration.
Most problematically, you and Bill seem so very eager to attack even modest and measures reform proposals --- even those coming from smart members of the GOP ---- as part of a radical effort to "blame Amerika" and "apologize to hoodlums." Do you really think this is how right-leaning folks like Grover Norquist and Rick Perry and Nathan Deal and Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and Charles Grassley and Jim Sensenbrenner and the Koch brothers and Paul Ryan are approaching sentencing reform? Do you really think GOP elected officials are so mentally weak that they are just being tricked by lefties and radicals inside the Beltway into support something that is so obviously foolish? I would REALLY like to hear a candid answer to these question concerning what you think is motivating so many serious folks on the Right to be embracing modern sentencing reform efforts.
Even the suggestion that all these serious GOP folks cannot be trusted to do sentencing reform in a cautious and responsible way is the kind of thinking and rhetoric that has led to the rise of Trump within the GOP: either you take a ridiculously extreme position, or you are really an Obama lackey in RINO garb. Perhaps seeing the world in such black and white terms makes it easier to have distaste for anything Prez Obama says, but such simplistic approach to complex problems essentially ensures we will not even begin to consider complex solutions that can help improve the public welfare for all.
Improving public policy is hard, in part because doing so responsibly includes acknowledging trade offs and risks of error and the reality we will never have perfect foresight --- e.g., when health advocates pushed for more aggressive treatment of chronic pain in the 1990s, few could have predicted this would contribute greatly to our current opioid epidemic. But hindsight and data allow us to try to do better if we want to. But I surmise that, for various reasons, in this arena you are content with "good enough for government work."
Doug --
Very, very briefly.
You say a number of things contribute to crime, one of them being "bad experiences with the criminal justice system."
Does a person who expects to get away with it, (dangerous speeding, minor domestic abuse, small-time burglary) but instead is caught and given a months-long but legal (and less than was available) prison sentence, thereby have a "bad experience with the legal system"?
I suspect he often FEELS he does, but my view his FEELING should be given zero weight. Our system should encourage, indeed insist upon, acceptance of responsibility. It should, contrariwise, punish illegitimate resentment and anger-building self-justification. It is the latter two attitudes that are among the most fertile breeding grounds of recidivism.
So what goes into your definition of a "bad experience with the criminal justice system?" Anything the cops do the suspect dislikes (which is going to be almost everything)? Arresting you for distribution amounts you know others in your gang got away with? Food in prison tuna loaf rather than meat loaf? Television allowed only 6 our instead of 8 hours?
What's the definition of the "bad experience"?
Douglas,
You condemn "binary thinking" and a lack of "critical nuance" in your post and then seem to illustrate both.
Critical nuance involves the knowledge that there are primary causes, secondary causes, and symptoms of a problem. You list a few but I have some questions. Please excuse the humblebrags below.
Why are some kids victims of "bad schooling" while my 10 year old son, who is knee deep into Appalachia, is doing high school Algebra, speaks Latin, and is looking forward to "Aerodynamics Camp" when old enough next year?
Why doesn't the "hot weather" make him violent?
Why is my son NOT in a "bad neighborhood?"
Why is my son very unlikely to commit a crime even though he has access to firearms (under my supervision)?
Why is my son, and many like him, very unlikely to have a "bad experience with the criminal justice system?"
Because you appear to be incapable of the "critical nuance" it takes to see that most of those are symptoms (along with criminality) of the same problem.
Good parenting includes making sacrifices (like my Masters Degree holding wife who forgoes a career to home school) to get your kids out of bad schools.
Good parenting includes moving out of or shielding kids from "bad neighborhoods."
Good parenting includes making sure your kid does not have unsupervised access to guns.
Good parenting includes making sure your kid has impulse control and knows that "I was hot" is not an excuse for violence against another.
Good parenting includes making sure your kid pays respect to the police rather than wearing "Stop Snitching" T-Shirts and his only experience with the police is asking for help/directions or in some other positive venue.
Your lack of "critical nuance" is why the criminal justice problem is never solved. You treat symptoms. The patient is gut shot and you want to just dab the blood he is spitting up.
It is no coincidence that the incarcerated are mainly the poor and the poor are much less likely to come from intact families.
It is no coincidence that the "bad neighborhoods" are made up of the poor, a group, again, made up of non-traditional "families."
It is no coincidence that the "bad schools" are in the same neighborhoods.
It is no coincidence that the kids in these neighborhoods are the ones getting unsupervised access to guns.
It is no coincidence that kids in these neighborhoods are having "bad experiences with the criminal justice system."
You asked: "Do you really think GOP elected officials are so mentally weak that they are just being tricked by lefties and radicals inside the Beltway into support something that is so obviously foolish? "
Yes.
You stated: "I would REALLY like to hear a candid answer to these question concerning what you think is motivating so many serious folks on the Right to be embracing modern sentencing reform efforts."
Foolishness, and a misguided belief that the media along with the rest of the "lefties and radicals" will suddenly like them if they show "compassion."
You stated: "Improving public policy is hard, in part because doing so responsibly includes acknowledging trade offs and risks of error and the reality we will never have perfect foresight --- e.g., when health advocates pushed for more aggressive treatment of chronic pain in the 1990s, few could have predicted this would contribute greatly to our current opioid epidemic. But hindsight and data allow us to try to do better if we want to. But I surmise that, for various reasons, in this arena you are content with "good enough for government work.""
Doug, the one proposing "good enough for government work" is you. You admit the data is incomplete and flawed regarding the reform proposals, but state it is "the best data we have."
Do your job, Doug. Answer the questions in my post on the other thread. You and your fellow academics, roll up your shirt sleeves and find the answers. Fedgov has all of the information necessary. It just takes people willing to compile it. No more phony baloney articles about kids whose parents were incarcerated being more likely to go to prison. (Duh!) No more, "the best we have" is "good enough for government work."
If the root cause of crime is the absence of an intact family, how does locking up parents address crime?
https://nrccfi.camden.rutgers.edu/files/nrccfi-fact-sheet-2014.pdf (1 in 28 children have an incarcerated parent)
https://www.rt.com/usa/incarceration-african-black-prison-606/ (25% of African Americans who grew up in the last three decades had at least one parent incarcerated during their childhood)
Even assuming the premise of your comment is accurate (which it is not, criminologists have studied the cause of crime for decades and the answer they all come to is that there is no single factor that can explain the cause of crime), it does not rationally support that long term incarceration rates are the best means of addressing crime.
I don't understand the myriad of comments you make regarding the indigent. Both the current opiate/heroin epidemic and white collar offenses generally are full of criminal offenders from an upper or middle class background with "intact" families.
The suggestion that the GOP members embracing sentencing reform are doing so to get "the lefties and radicals" to like them (misguided or not) fails to account for the fact that there does not appear to be any benefit to the GOP members from obtaining a favorable status within these groups. The more likely, although less advantageous reason for your argument, is that these GOP members either agree with the sentencing reform's underlying policy and/or their constituents support such a policy.
1. For Bill: my reference to bad experience with the legal system was short-handed reference to empirical research done by Tom Tyler and Jeffrey Fagan and others about the clsoe connections between the perceived legitimacy and fairness of the law and the willingness of persons to comply with the law. A piece from DOJ's OJP blog --- http://www.ojpdiagnosticcenter.org/blog/procedural-justice-increasing-trust-decrease-crime --- notes that "numerous empirical studies persuasively demonstrate that perceptions of legitimacy have a greater impact on people’s compliance with the law than their fear of formal sanctions."
2. For Tarls: the empirical research done by Tom Tyler and Jeffrey Fagan and others I just referenced is one of thousands of empirical studies done my fellow academics. There is no shortage of research from the academy, though like research on weather patterns, reasonable people can reach different conclusions about what should be done in response to that research.
Critically, I am 100% certain that good parenting is helping your son and many others have a greater respect for the law than does bad parenting, and certainly bad parenting (and poverty) can/will impact a whole bunch of other proven criminogenic factors. But good vs. bad parenting cannot possibly be the whole story --- or even most of the story --- for why Florida's homicide rate is nearly twice the rate of New York's or for why West Virginia's homicide rate is four times the rate of New Hampshire's. (Or, if you really, truly think this is ALL about parenting, perhaps we ought to be thinking about whether we should let the "bad parents" of Florida and West Virginia keep having kids. This is meant as a joke.)
3. I am now especially eager to hear from Bill if he agrees with you that so many seemingly intelligent GOP elected officials are so mentally weak that they are just being tricked by lefties and radicals into supporting sentencing reform. I have a hard time thinking this fully explains why former Texas Gov Rick Perry and firebrands like Grover Norquist are advocates for sentencing reform, but maybe you are right that the vast majority of GOP elected officials in DC are unable to think clearly in this arena when the lefties and the media start spreading their magic mental pixie dust. (And if this is true, I guess I should be taking Bill's bet concerning whether the GOP will hold hearings on Obama's coming SCOTUS nominee --- according to you, Tarls, there is no chance the GOP will be able to stand up to the coming leftie/media pressure to confirm an Obama nominee.)
1. "For Bill: my reference to bad experience with the legal system was short-handed reference to empirical research done by Tom Tyler and Jeffrey Fagan and others about the close connections between the perceived legitimacy and fairness of the law and the willingness of persons to comply with the law."
So cops and prosecutors are supposed to adjust their behavior to whether the drug pusher or bank robber or wife beater thinks well of it???!!!
Wonderful! Exactly how many criminals do you think are going to have a favorable impression of those who bring them to justice? I tell ya, those drug dealers are really an objective, fair-minded, hold-the-balance-true bunch!!
2. "I guess I should be taking Bill's bet concerning whether the GOP will hold hearings on Obama's coming SCOTUS nominee..."
So are you taking it or not?
Bill, I did not call for cops and prosecutors to adjust there behavior, rather I was just pointing to the research data we have concerning factors that contribute to crime that you asked about. Geez, stop with the silliness if you want to have a grown up conversation about contributors to crime.
And I told you I am not taking your bet because I do not view GOP officials to be as mentally weak as Tarls does. But I am still awaiting your answers to my questions about your views on GOP supporters of sentencing reform.
To his credit, Tarls indicated his view that all the GOP folks I named and others are subject to the siren songs of the left and the media. I sincerely want to know if you share his disconcerting views of the (lack of) fortitude and wisdom of GOP elected leaders.