Weisberg on Mass Incarceration and Purposes of Punishment

Bob Weisberg’s just-delivered Barrock Lecture, “Reality-Challenged Theories of Punishment,” can be viewed here. After reviewing the extraordinary data on the mass incarceration phenomenon in America, Bob considers the implications for each of the traditional purposes of punishment (retribution, incapacitation, general deterrence, specific deterrence, and rehabilitation). I think he is spot-on that the theorists advocating for each of these different approaches have not adequately come to grips with the realities of mass incarceration. Punishment theorists frequently bemoan their marginalization in the policymaking realm. Perhaps they could make their work seem more relevant outside the academy if they took better account of the scale of contemporary incarceration and its particular impact on certain social groups.

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New Report on Contacts Between Police and the Public: Numbers Generally Look Good for Police, But Racial Disparities Are Also in Evidence

As I discussed here, there is a substantial body of social psychological research suggesting an important connection between crime levels and the way that police treat citizens – basically, the more that police are perceived to be fair and respectful, the more that citizens, in turn, will feel respect for the law and a sense of obligation to cooperate with the police. With that background in mind, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’s brand-new report Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2008 makes for some very interesting reading. The data are based on a national survey of U.S. residents that BJS has conducted every three years since 2002.

On the whole, police should regard the report as good news. Here are some of the basic findings.

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Marquette Students Win IP Writing Competition

Congratulations to Mitchell Stock and Francisco Quiroz, winners of the State Bar’s 2011 IP Writing Competition.  Stock won first place for his paper entitled “Hypothetical, Actual, or Footstar: How the Courts Should Handle Patent and Copyright Licenses in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.”  Quiroz took second for “The Decline of Fair Use: How the DMCA Marginalized Fair Use and What To Do About It.”  This adds to a recent tradition of strong showings by Marquette law students in the competition.

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