newjerseynewsroom.com

Share this Twitter Myspace Digg Del.icio.us Reddit Slashdot Furl Yahoo Technorati Newsvine Facebook Export PDF Print E-mail

I can't judge the details as I haven't seen them and I heartily support a legal system that pays attention to reality and thus the dynamics of situations and people. However, with a growing prison population, high recidivism rates, a higher rate of prisoners with substance abuse or mental illness, religiously inspired laws still on the books and little attention, despite the best intent of criminologists, to empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of laws, the legal system has not proven itself in any way a reality or outcomes based system. The system is based on morality and values. And, while I may not entirely agree with that, the first foray into realism should not be something that is potentially very harmful for victims. If we haven't proven the cost-benefit of the system as it is, I don't think we can justify potentially causing greater harm to victims.