Criminal Justice

Have I Got a Revenue Enhancement for You!

I’ve been pondering the arguments about how to reduce the national debt, and I have a proposal. Dump the drug war. The fiscal consequences of our current policies are staggering. While other estimates have been as high as 88 billion, an economics professor at Harvard reported in 2005 that replacing marijuana prohibition with a system [...]

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Death and Taxes

These days, those of us who follow policy debates are suffering from overload: same-sex marriage, immigration policy, foreign policy—not to mention the re-emergence of pocketbook issues like collective bargaining rights—are generating lots of heat, if distressingly little light. And then, of course, there are the perennial complaints about taxes. Everyone, it seems, wants government to [...]

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Pesky Evidence

I’ll admit to being one of the multitude of fans who have made shows like NCIS and CSI such hits. It isn’t that I don’t recognize how unrealistic they are—no publicly financed lab could afford such cutting-edge equipment even if someone invented it—but I love watching the search for hard evidence, and the characters’ willingness [...]

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The Ethics of Private Police

In my historic neighborhood, we are having a vigorous debate about the wisdom/propriety of paying monthly “dues” to hire off-duty police officers to conduct extra patrols. The concern is that the Indianapolis police force is stretched thin, and despite Mayor Ballard’s emphasis on public safety, not much has changed, and certainly not for the better. I understand the [...]

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Duke and Prosecutorial Hazard

The recent dismissals of all charges brought against the Duke lacrosse players—accompanied by condemnations of the prosecutor who originally brought the charges—reminded me of something said in 1940 by Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who later presided over the Nuremberg trials.   Jackson said “The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty and reputation [...]

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