Crime and Punishment

Now here's a Facebook meme that makes sense. It's from Filming Cops, but the true adversary here is not the police officer:This isn't some paranoid, whack-job, cop hating-nonsense. It's an accurate description of how all criminal laws are enforced.Even a minor violation such as loitering can have a penalty of several hundred dollars, which is probably an awful lot … [Read more...] about Law Enforcement

I was driving home from a trip to the grocery store this morning when I spotted my local Chicago Police beat car ahead of me, and I noticed he had a curious bumper sticker, on which I could make out the letters "YPOSHOT". When I got a little closer, I could see a message about a $10,000 reward for information about anyone shooting at a Chicago police officer, which you could … [Read more...] about YPO-SHOT

One of the themes I keep visiting here at Windypundit is that when you harm someone, the magnitude of the harm you do that person is not dependent on your reason for doing it. Punch a guy in the face, and it doesn't matter if he's an innocent stranger on the bus or a push-in robber trying to get into your home. You cause the same pain either way.I'm not saying there's no … [Read more...] about Knowing Harm When We See It

Apparently something called the National Institute of Justice is offering prizes for whoever comes up with exciting and innovative ways to study cost and effectiveness of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). The appellatesquawk quotes from the breathless email announcement: NIJ CHALLENGE: COST-BENEFIT OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION LAWAre you up for … [Read more...] about Suspicions About the SORNA Challenge

I've written very little about George Zimmerman's killing of Trayvon Martin, and I have nothing to say about the trial. It's a lethal-force incident, with a claim of self-defense, and in years of reading about such incidents, I've learned a few important lessons:(1) These cases are very fact-specific: Guilt or innocence can turn on just a few details, and it will be hard to … [Read more...] about Nothing to Say About the Zimmerman Trial