“Many of the worst criminals,” Andy writes in his post on the death penalty, below, “operate from jail.” This has always baffled me. One of the reasons we lock up the bad guys, after all—perhaps the principal reason—is to keep them from doing any more bad stuff.
In re which, a question for Andy: What would it take to shut down criminal activity in our prisons altogether? More prisons? New, high-tech surveillance equipment? Better training for guards? What?
And if there’s a good answer to that question, a second instantly follows: Why hasn’t it already been done?
I don’t intend these questions as in any way leading or tendentious, by the way—I ask them, to paraphrase Dr. Johnson, out of ignorance, stark ignorance.