Criminal Justice

The most egregious liar I ever knew was someone I never suspected until the day that, suddenly and irrevocably, I did. Twelve years ago, a young man named Stephen Glass began writing for The New Republic, where I was an editor. He quickly established himself as someone who was always onto an amusingly outlandish story -- like the time he met some Young Republican types at a convention, gathered them around a hotel-room minibar, then, with guileless ferocity, captured their… more

John Edwards, the millionaire turned populist, suggests that the Paris Hilton case bolsters his argument that there are "two Americas." Of course, for presidential candidate Edwards, targeting the left end of the Democratic Party, everything proves that there are two Americas.

Certainly, Edwards himself proves there is more than one America. After all, not too many of us put their millions into overseas investments, are paid $500,000 a year to advise a hedge fund and enjoy $400 haircuts.

But what about the… more

Sacramento lawmakers are in a trap. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton will decide in little more than three months whether to set a population cap on the state’s vastly overcrowded prison system, potentially forcing the early release of thousands of convicted criminals. To keep the court at bay, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked the Legislature to approve billions in new prison construction money, and to consider revising sentencing and parole laws to put fewer criminals behind bars.

The trap is this:… more

The crowning disgrace of this country’s five-year experiment with one-party Republican rule was surely the passage of a bill on September 29, that sanctioned abusive treatment of prisoners in the "war on terror," banned habeas corpus claims for those identified as "enemy combatants," and allowed the president to place that designation on anyone, including U.S. citizens.

Even with their president’s approval ratings at Nixonian levels, and their own sinking below that, congressional Republicans were able to muster one last grand gesture… more

Prison design is about as unglamorous as architecture can get. Corrections agencies want the cheapest cage they can buy; communities want the monstrosities out of sight. Innovation has typically meant anything that will cut costs -- for instance, casting an entire prefabricated cell, from the bed frame to the toilet, as a single piece of low-grade concrete. But when British nonprofit Rideout (Creative Arts for Rehabilitation) approached the architect Will Alsop about designing a concept prison -- from the inside… more

The Duke University rape allegations will be remembered as a turning point in the history of judicial-media relations.

Lawyers in the case have been shameless in their effort to manipulate the case to their side's advantage. And the media have been eager co-conspirators, such that the trial has, in effect, already begun. It is being conducted, not in the courtroom, but in news pages and on TV.

So here's a modest proposal: Why not make it official? Why not just… more

Douglas McGray writes about social and international issues, technology, and culture for Public Radio International's This American Life, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, Wired, The Washington Post, Mother Jones and The Economist. His work has been profiled on the cover of Time Asia… more

Just an hour from San Francisco, on the road to Fresno, a rancher has sheared a giant cross, and the words "Jesus Saves," into a grassy hillside. A little farther south, a National Rifle Association banner billows from a long truck bed, parked by the side of Route 99 until harvest time. Away from California's big cities and the cool Pacific coast lies a flat, fertile landscape that's politically more like Indiana than Marin County. Here, in California's Central Valley,… more

Over the last few weeks, some local politicians have expressed fears that the racial violence in the Los Angeles County jail system could spread to the streets. County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke warned that if the violence escalates, it has the "potential to bring the whole community down."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is so concerned that the rioting could go beyond the jails that he has offered to help Sheriff Lee Baca keep the peace. The mayor insisted that the… more

Most people will never take an I.Q. test, and if they do, it probably won't have a big impact on them. Generally speaking, I.Q. tests do not carry much weight anymore. Not with vague charges of cultural bias still clinging to them. Not at a time when multiple intelligences -- that happy, inclusive vision in which nearly everybody is good at something -- are on the ascendancy. If you do take a Stanford-Binet or a Wechsler, and you score in… more