An Intelligent Viewpoint on Sentencing.

Finally someone in authority is making sense on the problems facing our prison system. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy had this to say yesterday:

"The only thing worse than sentencing under the guidelines is sentencing without them," he told judges and lawyers from across the Ninth Circuit yesterday. "I think the guidelines are far too severe," he added, explaining that spending money on prisoners while failing to invest in efforts to inform at-risk groups about sentencing undermined the principle of deterrence.

"The fact that the prison guards' association lobbies for higher penalties is sick," he added emphatically.

UPDATE: Two in one day. I was just running an errand and happened to catch LA Police Chief William Bratton being interviewed on KPCC, the local public radio station. (You may be able to find an archive of the interview here.) He was, correctly espousing the need to focus money on education, rehabilitation and drug rehab rather than building more prisons to house offenders. While he correctly stated that there is a class of professional criminals that will need to be "housed," there is a large group that needs to be prresourcessourses to avoid re-offending.

In addition, he recommended readdressing the 3-strikes law. But, was right to say (my words, not his) that we have no politicians in control with the balls to do this.