After the recent 5-4 SCOTUS ruling in Brown v. Plata et al, which allowed for partial release of prisoners in the overcrowded California prisons as the overcrowding was itself a violation of the prisoners’ constitutional rights. The dissenting Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts (Chief Justice) called this ruling radical and hoped this would not affect the crime rates in the country.
The reactions to this judgment have been largely scathing and critical. Some suggesting Californians should start considering extra protection for their houses.
In stark contrast to this new findings depict that crime rates in America have gone down due to higher rates of incarceration. Over the past couple of decades experts have generally been baffled about the exact causes of reduction in crime rates.
Does that mean the U.S. should consider more prisons to keep the streets safe, in the light of the Brown v. Plata ruling?
One should also note the increased use of technology, photographs, social networking accounts to substantiate or begin investigations in criminal activities of Americans.
The SCOTUS did not hesitate to append photographs in its ruling to show the horrific conditions in which prisoners are kept at the state prisons. This lent fuel to some of longstanding arguments about televization of court proceedings.
While, elsewhere Facebook status messages led to the arrest of bank robbery suspects in Texas, in addition to various previous arrests and convictions due to tweets and blogs.
A post-information crime-free country indeed?!
Legal Decisions 