Crime and Punishment

I've been reading How to Stop a Stalker by Mike Proctor, a former detective in Westminster, California. I'm fascinated by some aspects of forensic psychology, so I was hoping the book would discuss the psychology of stalkers and how to discourage them. However, Proctor's book is more about how stalking is defined as a crime and how police handle it. There are several … [Read more...] about How to Stop a Stalker – Thoughts and Observations

It looks like Seattle police may think the Sunday morning shooting deaths of four Lakewood police officers was the work of a guy who was reportedly out on $150,000 bail from another couple of crimes. However, the thing that everyone's going to be talking about is the fact that he had previously been sentenced to a 95-year sentence in Arkansas, but he was released early after … [Read more...] about The Crime of the Moment

I don't blog about the death penalty very much, mostly because I don't care about the death penalty very much. I'm not saying it's unimportant, but I just don't have the urge to write about it. My position on it has been pretty bland: Some crimes are so evil that the perpetrators have forfeitted their right to live, but my libertarian leanings prevent me from trusting the … [Read more...] about The Death Penalty and Spending Wisely

[I started writing this days ago, and the story's gone stale, but I'm posting so little these days that I figured I should get it out there.] Some time ago, Radley Balko brought us the story of Sally Harpold, who bought two boxes of cold medicine within a few days of each other, thus violating Indiana's law against buying more than 3 grams of pseudoephedrine within a one week … [Read more...] about Bogus Pseudo Crimes

... and a look back at how to solve the problem of the armed village idiot... There's folks who say (I'm one of them) that the MCPPA is one of the best carry permit laws in the country.  They -- we -- have a point.  Quick digression:  I'm occasionally praised for being one of the folks who helped write the law.  That's flattering, but it's not true; I've … [Read more...] about A Quick (Okay: Long) Look at the Machinery of the MCPPA…