Robert Alt is director of the Rule of Law Programs and senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He sat down with us to discuss Heritage’s Overcriminalization project. Q: How long have you been working on the Overcriminalization project? A: Five years. Overcriminalization was …
Should society throw people into jail who admittedly did nothing blameworthy just to set an example for others? That is exactly what the Center for Progressive Reform has suggested doing in a recent report on the Occupational Safety and Health Act. In criminal law, the Supreme Court has embraced what …
The violence brought about in Mexico’s drug war may finally be reaching a plateau. At least that is the hope of many, as the nation continues its sixth year of its battle against transnational organized crime. In an announcement last week, Mexican President Felipe Calderon indicated that Mexican gang-related deaths …
Marriage, these days, is getting bad press. For example, a string of recent headlines claim that living together is healthier than marriage, citing a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. Though provocative, headlines can be misleading, focusing only on a non-representative subset of findings. A more nuanced …
According to new data from the FBI, violent and property crime rates fell in America last year, despite continued high unemployment rates. Unlike previous press reports that said criminologists are puzzled by declining crime rates during times of high unemployment, the Associated Press ran a story quoting University of Cincinnati …
During the past week, the U.S. and Colombia indicted and arrested more than 50 individuals charged with organizing maritime and aerial smuggling of cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. via Central America and Mexico. The arrests again reflect the sustained nature of close law enforcement cooperation between the U.S. and …
Violent and property crime fell in America last year, the second full year of the current recession, according to new data from the FBI. Recently, the Associated Press ran a story on how criminologists are puzzled by declining crime rates during times of high unemployment. Criminologists should not be surprised, …
