Tag Archives: prison

April 2, 2012, 5:31 pm

God Bless Our Freedom From Activist Judges

I don’t know about you, but I’m immensely relieved that a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court has just held that

~~(a) a person’s right to his or her person is inviolable~~

~~(b) “Congress shall make no law respecting…the right of the people freely to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances”~~

(c) “officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.”

As you guessed, the correct answer is (c). Glad we’ve gotten that straight now. The author of the decision, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy,

joined by the court’s conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs but also public health and information…

March 13, 2012, 4:32 pm

Moral Crisis, Anyone?

By Todd Gitlin

According to the NYT, a report by the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development concludes:

Managers at major banks ignored widespread errors in the foreclosure process, in some cases instructing employees to adopt make-believe titles and speed documents through the system despite internal objections. … Managers were aware of the problems and did nothing to correct them. The shortcuts were directed by managers in some cases. …“I believe the reports we just released will leave the reader asking one question — how could so many people have participated in this misconduct?” David Montoya, the inspector general of the housing department, said in a statement. “The answer — simple greed.”

…

As at Wells Fargo, employees at JPMorgan Chase took on titles like “vice president of Chase Home” even though “the titles were given by Chase for…