“Reality-Challenged Theories of Punishment”: Weisberg Lecture on Oct. 6

I’m looking forward to Robert Weisberg’s talk here next week. He is delivering this year’s George and Margaret Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law. I think we can expect a pungent critique of retributive theories of punishment. Here is the description:

The theme of “American exceptionalism” has found perverse corroboration in the size of the prison population, according to Weisberg. At the same time, discourse about the “purposes of punishment” is thriving, with a recent revival of highly abstract theorizing about the nature and legitimacy of retribution, he says. In this lecture, Weisberg will describe the disconnection and recommend ways of overcoming it, stressing that the abstract theorizing must be more sensitive to what punishment means and what effects it has in modern America.

The lecture will be at 12:15 on October 6. For more information and to register, see the lecture website.

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Doing Better Than “Nailing and Jailing” in the Fight Against Violence

As Milwaukee County Children’s Court Judge Joe Donald put it, “We do a very good job of trailing, nailing, and jailing.” But can Milwaukee do more when it comes to dealing with crime so that it can be prevented and the lives of those on the path to committing crimes turn out better?

The good news, participants in an “On the Issues” discussion Monday at Eckstein Hall generally agreed, is that the large majority of young people in the community are not involved in crime, that there are existing constructive programs involving thousands of youths , and those who went on highly-publicized sprees in the Riverwest neighborhood on July 3 and in and around the State Fair grounds on Aug. 4 are not typical.

The bad news is that it doesn’t take very many crimes to cause great harm, not only to the victims but to neighborhoods and the city as a whole, panel members agreed. Furthermore, criminals are getting younger and more violent, and the poverty which is so often the environment for criminals is getting broader and deeper in the city.  

The panel discussion, hosted by Mike Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy, before an audience of about 200, followed the showing Sunday night at the Milwaukee Film Festival of a documentary, “The Interrupters,” about efforts to reduce youth violence in Chicago.

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New Report Shows Big Increase in Arrests for Simple Possession Since 1980

Last week, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released an interesting new report, Arrest in the United States, 1980-2009.  I was particularly interested in the data on arrests for simple drug possession or use, which accounted for about ten percent of all arrests in 2009.  This seems a little high (so to speak), especially in comparison to where we were three decades ago with drug arrests.  Between 1980 and 2009, the number of possession/use arrests more than doubled from 200 per 100,000 people to about 450 per 100,000.  The 2009 number actually represents a downturn from a thirty-year high in 2006 (more than 500 per 100,000).

The arrest rates for simple possession and trafficking have not moved in sync, suggesting shifting patterns of enforcement in the War on Drugs.

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