Law in Contemporary Society

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MassIncarceration 5 - 22 Feb 2012 - Main.ShakedSivan
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 I thought it would be useful to consolidate a conversation that's going on in the class facebook group. The material is interesting, important, and relates to our discussions in this class (most obviously regarding Robinson and his work). Hopefully it will also allow us to procrastinate from finishing torts or con law reading. I apologize for the scattershot nature of this post. I may go back and do more editing / summarizing of the links below if there's any interest or this sparks a discussion. Of course I welcome any interested person to do likewise, or just jump off from one of the articles or points and run with it.

A New Yorker article on mass incarceration that provides something of a historical overview. "The Caging of America" by Adam Glopnik, 1/30/2012.

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 “Conservatives don’t like this view because it shows that being tough doesn’t help; liberals don’t like it because apparently being nice doesn’t help, either. Curbing crime does not depend on reversing social pathologies or alleviating social grievances; it depends on erecting small, annoying barriers to entry.” I liked the solution proposed by Glopnik because it was a functionalist, de-politicized solution so I found it particularly interesting that he thought people in politics wouldn’t like it.

-- SkylarPolansky - 21 Feb 2012

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>		Skylar, all good points, especially on the lack of any focus or discussion in our crim law classes about what happens to people after they're convicted.

I want to jump on a tangent for a second- I hate the term "future policy-maker" or god forbid "future leader." We haven't actually done anything yet. Last year I was delivering pizza and surprisingly few customers saluted my leadership or policy-making abilities. I suppose at the time I was a future future leader and then transformed into a future leader upon acceptance to law school.

I actually found Glopnik's language aggravating because it proposes a moderate, technocratic solution that would probably get wide support if proved successful, but he feels the need to use a familiar strawman. This is a strawman that Obama, of whom I'm a huge fan, has perfected- there are crazy people on the right, and crazy people on the left, and then there's moderate rational me in the middle.


Revision 5r5 - 22 Feb 2012 - 15:36:16 - ShakedSivan
Revision 4r4 - 21 Feb 2012 - 15:55:35 - SkylarPolansky
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