The United States has more more men & women in prison than any other nation including Russia and China…. The 95% conviction rate reached by threats of long sentences, intimidation, lies and prosecutorial abuse has got to be reckoned with now, not later.
So says Duke Cunningham, an imprisoned conservative Republican, in Slate.
I don't know, and I'm too lazy to check, but I'd bet that the Mighty Duke was a law-and-order, lock-'em-up guy when he was living in the free world. It's like that old thing about a conservative being a liberal that's just been mugged. A liberal is a conservative that's just been imprisoned (or arrested).
Yeah. Reminds me of my former commissioner, convicted felon Ed Norris, who was heard to complain, after getting out of the joint, about just how hard it was for a felon to get a job.
FWIW, back in the day (the days I was writing my crim text), I couldn't find any systematic evidence for the relation between victimization and political views on crime. I didn't try to find evidence on the conservative-to-liberal shift, but the anecdotal evidence from Cunningham, et. al. is nice to keep in your pocket.