The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/policy-politics/page/2/)
The government has former spies, military officials, and law enforcement professionals on hundreds of corporate boards to protect national security, in what a Washington University Law Review study calls an increase in “national security corporate governance.”
In private meetings, public appearances on television and late-night phone calls, Trump’s advisers and allies have done all they can to persuade the president not to fire an official he dismisses as disloyal. That may end when Robert Mueller’s probe does.
The House bill passed last week won’t solve every problem facing our justice system, but it’s a lot better than doing nothing, says a former inmate who hosts the “Decarceration Nation” podcast.
Last week, Mark Inch suddenly walked away from his job as director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The New York Times says that his surprising departure after nine months on the job was prompted by policy gamesmanship between Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.
The New York Times endorses broader sentencing reform, but criminal law expert Douglas Berman argues that the First Step Act that the newspaper opposes would be “a real improvement.”
Programs that focus on addressing mental health and substance abuse issues of inmates can reduce the burden of crime on American taxpayers, according to a policy brief issued the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).
Mark Inch resigned with no public explanation on the same day that White House adviser Jared Kushner commended him for his work on prisoner rentry. A House panel has been examining staff problems in the prison agency.
Colorado’s three largest cities experienced a “stark” rise in the enforcement of ordinances aimed at moving homeless individuals out of public places since 2016, according to a University of Denver study. But researchers said the state has done little to address the roots of homelessness, while increasing the burden on taxpayers.
A major thread in public policy discussions is an asserted need to “solve” the opioid crisis by limiting production of opioid analgesics and reducing medical exposure to potentially addicting drugs. But are such steps actually a remedy? A pain specialist argues they aren’t.
Hallucinogens like LSD and other psychedelic drugs are currently illegal. But like marijuana, they have medicinal properties that make them potential non-addictive tools for treating chronic pain sufferers caught in the opioid epidemic, argues an addiction specialist.