July 2011

(view high-resolution version)

Editor's Note

• The Ends Didn’t Justify the Means

  Matt Welch

  Our complicity in the devastating war on crime

Contributors

• Contributors

Letters

• Letters: The Loughner Panic

Citings

• Death Row Deliverance

  Jacob Sullum

  Prosecutorial misconduct

• Paper Poverty

  Tim Cavanaugh

  Wealth trends

• Humanizing Trade

  Ronald Bailey

  Ancestral exchange

• No App for That

  Brian Doherty

  Checkpoint map crackdown

• Lethal and Illegal

  Radley Balko

  Black-market death deals

• Fear Factor

  Ronald Bailey

  Overreacting to risks

• Mandatory Medicare

  Peter Suderman

  Entitlement or obligation?

• Muzzling Gun Rights

  Brian Doherty

  Loughner panic continues

• Condo Cash

  Damon W. Root

  Eminent domain abuse

• Internet Sex Panic

  Radley Balko

  Fake study, real impact

• Lunar Lunacy

  Peter Suderman

  Space waste

• Cuban Capitalism

  Michael C. Moynihan

Soundbites

• Online Tracking Trouble

  Peter Suderman

Years Ago

• 30 Years Ago in Reason

Brickbats

• Brickbats

  Charles Oliver

Quotes

• Quotes

Lists

• Admission Secrets

Columns

• You’ve Got Jail

  Greg Beato

  Is it time to bring America’s prisoners online?

• The Golden State’s Iron Bars

  Tim Cavanaugh

  How California prison guards became the country’s most powerful union

• The Crime Rate Puzzle

  Radley Balko

  Did incarceration reduce the crime rate, or did it get in the way?

• Prison Math

  Veronique de Rugy

  What are the costs and benefits of leading the world in locking up human beings?

• Nuclear Disaster in Japan

  Ronald Bailey

  Does it show a way forward for nuclear power?

• The Pennsylvania Railroad

  Jacob Sullum

  In the Keystone State’s juvenile justice scandal, money changed everything.

Features

• The Devil’s Bargain

  Timothy Lynch

  How plea agreements, never contemplated by the Framers, undermine justice

• Keeping Kids Outside the System

  Irene Sullivan

  Alternatives to juvenile detention are cheaper and more effective.

• Collars for Dollars

  Peter Moskos

  How the drug war sacrifices real policing for easy arrests.

• ‘Long Prison Terms Are Wasteful Government Spending’

  Zach Weissmueller

  Criminologist Mark Kleiman on replacing severity with swiftness and certainty

• Bad Boys

  Radley Balko

  A rogue’s gallery of misbehaving prosecutors, plus three worth praising

• Indefensible

  Clay Conrad

  Public defenders are too overloaded to protect the rights of the accused.

• What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

  Harvey Silverglate

  The peril of vague criminal statutes

• Rape Factories

  Lovisa Stannow

  Why is the government doing so little to end sexual assault in prisons?

• Less Time, Less Crime

  Julie Stewart

  Conservatives lead a movement toward “tough and smart” sentencing policies.

• Perverted Justice

  Jacob Sullum

  Sex offender laws represent the triumph of outrage over reason.

• The Guilt Market

  Alexandra Natapoff

  Criminal snitching threatens the integrity of the justice system.

• Muddled Masses

  Jesse James DeConto

  The immigration detention system treats suspected illegal aliens like criminals, but with fewer rights.

• Wrongful Convictions

  Radley Balko

  How many innocent Americans are behind bars?

• Locked Up, Locked Out

  Bruce Western

  The social costs of incarceration

• Incarceration by the Numbers

• Culture of Misconduct

  Ken White

  The misplaced priorities of prosecutors

Culture & Reviews

• Briefly Noted: Singularity Seer

  Katherine Mangu-Ward

• Briefly Noted: Spook Show

  Damon W. Root

• Briefly Noted: A Bright Shining Lie

  Jacob Sullum

• Briefly Noted: Pirates of the North Sea

  Jesse Walker

• Caged Warmth

  Peter Bagge

  Three harrowing days at a women's minimum-security prison!

• It’s Hard to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future

  Ronald Bailey

  Why dart-throwing chimps are better than the experts

• That ’80s Show

  Jesse Walker

  Did Michael Jordan and Michael J. Fox invent modern individualism?

• Ron Paul’s Radical Vision

  Brian Doherty

  The libertarian Republican warns of impending disaster, reaches out to the left, and prepares for a presidential campaign.

Artifact

• Virtual Honeypot

  Peter Suderman

  Espionage via Twitter?