Monday, October 04, 2010

The Criminalization of Gardening and other stories

Here are several items I won't have time to blog about today but which merit readers' attention:
  • The Houston Chronicle praised Harris County DA Pat Lykos for launching an investigation into the suicide of a 13-year old who allegedly endured severe bullying. But Mark Bennett suggests "that it’s unwise for the folks who made a handgun available to a 13-year-old kid, knowing that he was suffering intense bullying at school, to ask the government to apportion blame." Jeff Gamso argues such cases should be handled as torts instead of criminal prosecutions.

6 comments:

  1. •At $390,000, the cost of Texas regulating municipal jails would be de minimis. The bigger barrier is opposition among law enforcement who don't want to be held accountable.

    TCJS can have oversight of city jails after they figure out how to get oversight of county jails. Another Montague County here......

    http://www.nuwavereporter.com/10042010-Jail.html

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  2. Wow, that's quite a story! Inspections, of course, cannot and are not designed to uncover misconduct by deputies. Just because bad things happened at a regulated jail doesn't mean that it's okay to let the unregulated ones go without standards or oversight at all.

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  3. I read the linked article concerning the 'insurgency' in Mexico and some of the comments that followed. One stood out to me pertaining to America's insatiable appetite for drugs. And the poster is probably more right than we'd like to believe when he/she says buying drugs will kill a Mexican. This is horrible, grotesque and just outright disgusting. But sadly, it's true. And most casual or infrequent users wouldn't think twice about toking up. I've been in law enforcement for 20 years and I'm thinking it's time to change our strategy. We regulate controlled substances as well as can be done. How about a scientific study (I can already hear the screeching using the word scientific) to determine the global effects of legalizing illicit drugs? Just study it and come up with crime rate estimates, economic impact, social aspects, etc. Or am I pissing in the wind with my open mind?

    Thanks for the article, Scott.

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  4. "the poster is probably more right than we'd like to believe when he/she says buying drugs will kill a Mexican"

    An excellent reason to Buy American! The best smoke is grown in California now, anyway.

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  5. I agree Grits.

    However, if the allegations are true that the administration knew but looked the other way, what sanctions can TCJS impose? None? If none, then either give them authority to take punitive action or do away with them if they are not ever going to be given any authority.

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  6. I have been a big Craig Watkins fan until lately. He won’t go after minority constables committing similar crimes but look out if a cat gets stuck in a wall at the animal shelter or you plant a garden for educational purposes. He’s no better than some of the other thugs we’ve been electing in our negrophilia culture.

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