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Category: Criminal Justice (Crime)
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Published: Tuesday, 13 March 2007
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Written by Howard Unger
The United States has the world's highest incarceration rate, with one in 32 adults currently or previously behind bars. Is it a failure of the system or a failure of society? U.S. lawmakers are rethinking policies on both.
When a judge hands down a prison sentence, it's the criminal who's supposed to "get the message." However, as more sentences have been handed down throughout the United States, oftentimes by judges bound by mandatory sentencing laws, it's lawmakers who are finally getting the message: It's not about prisons or mandatory sentences anymore, it's about principles.
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Category: Criminal Justice (Crime)
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Published: Wednesday, 21 February 2007
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Written by Donna Jackel
July 5, 2006
"Creating opportunity for the poor comes down to one word—'choice.'"
Generations of policymakers have grappled with how to provide children in low-income, high-crime neighborhoods a chance at a better life. But are we looking at the problem the right way?
Washington State Senator Adam Kline (D-Seattle), who represents some of the poorest and richest citizens in the state, strikes a familiar note: "For many kids, education is the only remaining way out the cycle of poverty," Kline said. In this sense, education remains "the great equalizer" of American society.
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