For 40 years, ever since Nixon's law-and-order agenda gave the impetus, the trend in social policy has been skewed to eliminate compassion and focus entirely on rule breaking.
Alan Singer | Posted 02.23.2012
In 40 years of teaching in the New York metropolitan area I have never had a Black student who did not have a story to tell.
HuffingtonPost.com | John Rudolf | Posted 12.29.2011
NEW YORK -- In 1986, as the crack cocaine epidemic ravaged America's inner cities, a Democratic Congress passed legislation dictating harsh mandatory ...
Tio Hardiman | Posted 12.18.2011
What more can be done to help reverse this ever-growing trend of locking people up instead of providing them with the necessary help to cope and deal with a changing world?
PA | Posted 11.26.2011
Inmates at a jail in South Wales have lodged a formal complaint with prison authorities because they want more sports channels on television. ...
Kevin Powell | Posted 11.20.2011
We are a nation of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Spiraling so far out of control that we are going to execute someone who may actually be innocent tomorrow.
AP | By GARANCE BURKE | Posted 11.09.2011
SAN FRANCISCO -- More than half of all people sent to federal prison for committing felony crimes so far this year were Hispanic, a major demographic ...
Michael Santos | Posted 10.28.2011
I applaud the new memorial in Washington D.C. honoring Dr. King. Yet, we -- as a nation -- still have a long way to go before we can say that we are living his noble dream.
Michael Santos | Posted 06.07.2011
As a federal prisoner, I live in a system that is the epitome of government waste. Legislators could easily cut a billion dollars from the federal prison budget with compromising public safety one iota.
Stephan A. Schwartz | Posted 05.25.2011
Benjamin Franklin saw America as a democratic society: middle class, largely urban, family-centered, joyful, and upwardly mobile. Recently we have been oriented more towards Ayn Rand.
Ramona Ripston | Posted 05.25.2011
The California Supreme Court has just 'sentenced' our state's taxpayers to an additional debt of $180,000 more per year. How? The state's high court upheld the death penalty in two cases.
AP | DAVID CRARY | Posted 05.25.2011
NEW YORK — Spurred by budget crises, California and Michigan together reduced their prison populations by more than 7,500 last year, contributin...
AP | JEFF CARLTON | Posted 05.25.2011
DALLAS — The United States may soon see its prison population drop for the first time in almost four decades, a milestone in a nation that locks up ...
AP | DEVLIN BARRETT | Posted 05.25.2011
WASHINGTON — The U.S. prison population edged up slightly last year, though the number of total inmates dropped in 20 states, including New York...
Posted 11.17.2011
In a new report, Al Jazeera English takes a look at just why people with mental health problems make up half the population of U.S. jails and prisons....
Philip N. Cohen | Posted 05.25.2011
A measure of the society's meritocracy is the extent to which advantage and disadvantage are passed from parents to children.
Paul Butler | Posted 05.25.2011
If I get put on a jury in a non-violent drug case, I'll vote "not guilty," based on my principles -- even if I think the defendant actually did it.
Odile Weissenborn | Posted 05.25.2011
In New York, the 36-year-old Rockefeller Drug Laws may be massively overhauled.
Deepak Chopra | Posted 05.07.2012