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Monday, June 06, 2011

Law - Two interesting prison stories

Prison education. Dan McFeely's report today in the Indianapolis Star begins:

Indiana prisoners will no longer be able to earn a taxpayer-funded bachelor's degree or study liberal arts under a shift in state prison-education policy.

Instead, inmates wanting to take college classes could earn credits only toward a work-skills certificate such as welding or work toward a limited number of two-year associate degrees -- but only if those are limited in scope and related to a specific need by an Indiana employer.

The change reflects another step by Gov. Mitch Daniels to reform higher education in Indiana by spending less on traditional liberal arts programs and more on business skills and vocational curriculums. It also comes after the General Assembly passed a two-year state budget that eliminated financial aid for prisoners, a program that cost taxpayers $9 million last year.

Under the new plan, which could go into effect by the end of this year, the Indiana Department of Correction would spend about $2 million on post-secondary education.

Can A Test Really Tell Who's A Psychopath? That is the heading to this 13-minute-long segment on NPR's All Things Considered, reported by Alix Spiegel, that begins:
In November 2009, Robert Dixon took a test to determine whether he was a psychopath.

After 26 years in prison, he was due for a parole hearing. In California, before a "lifer" like Dixon appears before the parole board, a state psychologist must first evaluate whether he poses a risk of further violence if released. To do that, the psychologist administers a test — the PCL-R, or Psychopathy Checklist-Revised — designed to measure whether that inmate is a psychopath.

This test has incredible power in the American criminal justice system. It's used to make decisions such as what kind of sentence a criminal gets and whether an inmate is released on parole. It has even been used to help decide whether someone should be put to death.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 6, 2011 12:49 PM
Posted to General Law Related