Category: Crime and Punishment
-
Ned Polsky, Maverick Sociologist
Reader Ray Stahl of Port Angeles, Washington, kindly mailed me a copy of Ned Polsky, Hustlers, Beats, and Others. It is a work of sociology by a maverick sociologist, academically trained, but decidedly his own man. I wasn't aware of it or him until a few days ago. The preface already has me convinced that…
-
Nat Hentoff on ‘Hate Crime’ Laws
Listen.
-
Don’t Mess With Texas: After 9th DWI, Texas Man Gets Life
News accounts like this one give me hope that there is still some common sense left in this crazy country dominated as it is by the politically correct. The sentence is just. Think about it. This is the miscreant's 9th conviction. The road to conviction is long. First there must be an apprehension, then a trial, then a…
-
Cops: A Necessary Evil
I don't much like law enforcement agents (qua law enforcement agents) and I try to avoid contact with them, not because I violate laws or have something to hide, but because I understand human nature, and I understand how power corrupts people, not inevitably, but predictably. Cops and sheriffs are too often arrogant, disrespectful, and…
-
Another Round with Reppert on AZ SB 1070: Reasonable Suspicion
In his most recent post on this topic, Victor Reppert tells us that his "main concern is with the 'reasonable suspicion' clause. That strikes me as horribly vague." Here is the relevant SB 1070 passage as amended by HB 2162 which contains the clause in question: For any lawful contact stop, detention or arrest made by…
-
Does Poverty Cause Crime?
You've heard me say more than once that poverty no more causes crime than wealth causes virtue. Heather MacDonald provides empirical confirmation in A Crime Theory Demolished. Lawlessness has fallen while joblessness has risen.
-
Eric Hoffer on the ‘Root Causes’ of Crime
Eric Hoffer as quoted in James D. Koerner, Hoffer's America (Open Court, 1973), p. 57: Poverty causes crime! That is what they are always shoving down our throats, the misbegotten bastards! What crap! Poverty does not cause crime. If it did we would have been buried in crime for most of our history . .…
-
Fetal Rights and the Death Penalty: Consistent or Inconsistent?
Is it consistent to support both fetal rights and the moral acceptability of capital punishment? That depends on what is meant by 'consistent.' Let us begin by asking whether the following propositions are logically consistent. P1. A living human fetus has a right to life which cannot be overridden except in rare cases (e.g. threat…
-
A. C. Grayling on the Roman Polanski Statutory Rape Case
I find myself in complete agreement with Professor Grayling's commentary on the Polanski case. Read it carefully; he makes several important points. What is astonishing to me, however, is how this man can be so sane and judicious on this topic, and yet such a blithering gasbag of a lunatic when it comes to religion, as…
-
Vigilantism? The Jerome Ersland Case
When decent citizens fail to receive adequate protection from governmental agencies, and when they have no reasonable expectation that the scum of society will be properly punished for their crimes, they will be tempted to take the law into their own hands. Liberals need to think about this. The American Thinker offers commentary on the…
-
Hocking on the Anarchist and the Criminal
William Ernest Hocking explains the anarchist’s attitude toward the criminal as follows: As for the criminal, his existence is not forgotten; but it is thought that he is either such by definition only, as one who has disobeyed what we have commanded; or he is such by response to the unnatural environment of the state…