At Life Sentences Blog, I’ve just finished a series of posts reviewing the Supreme Court’s criminal cases from last term. In light of their belated nature, I have not cross-posted them, but here are the links:
In case any criminals reading this are hoping to avoid prosecution because budget cuts are reducing the reach of federal prosecutors, their hopes are ill-founded – at least for now, according to James Santelle, the U.S. Attorney for the eastern district of Wisconsin.
But down the road and even now in places other than eastern Wisconsin? Cutbacks in federal spending could and sometimes are translating into decisions not to prosecute cases, Santelle said.
Speaking Tuesday at an “On the Issues” session at Eckstein Hall, Santelle told Mike Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy, that the staff he oversees in offices in Milwaukee and Green Bay, has been reduced from about 80 several years ago to about 70 now. More cuts may lie ahead, he said.
But so far, the reduction has been accomplished without affecting decisions on who to prosecute, Santelle said. That hasn’t been true in offices of US Attorneys in some places around the country, where decisions on matters such as “smaller” drug cases or white collar financial crimes are being shaped by whether the office has adequate resources. He said a $1 million bank fraud in some instances may be below the threshold a prosecutor has set for bringing a case to court, given practical limits on how much can get done.
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.