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James Q. Wilson guest-blogging on Volokh about incareceration

By Douglas A. Berman

I am very pleased to see noted criminologist James Q. Wilson guest-blogging over at The Volokh Conspiracy, and so far he is talking mostly about incarceration.  Here are his first few posts: What do we get from prison? Deterring crime Drug offenders in prison The costs and benefits of prison Based on these posts, I continue to find Professor Wilson's analysis of prison costs and benefits a bit too pithy and summary.  In his first post, Wilson makes astute points about mass incarceration tending to be a more "democratic" response to crime, but I wish he would grapple with the reality that voters often do not completely appreciate the economic, social and human costs of very long incarceration terms.  There really should be little doubt that locking up en masse any collection of persons who seem likely to commit crimes will surely reduce crime (outside prisons) somewhat as a matter of pure probabilities...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 10, 2008 (boomark / email).