Sentencing Class @ OSU Moritz College of Law

Previewing "College Behind Bars"

This recent USA Today article, headlined "'Undoing a mistake': Ken Burns film looks inside the push to bring college education back to prison," provides some important backstory on a notable new documentary about a notable prison education program in New York.  I suspect the full documentary with be worth watching/streaming, and I think just the preview serves as a potentially useful watch before our special guest scheduled for a visit on Monday.  Check it out:

Low-stress, high-learning opportunities via TV, radio and blogs

I made reference to a lot of current events stories to follow at the start of class, in part because the development of these stories highlight how many distinct and distinctive "who"s play a role in criminal justice reforms and ultimately in the operation of modern sentencing systems.

For example, the NFL can have a huge impact on social and political views and developments throughout the United States, especially this time of year.  Thus, I think folks ought to check out tonight's episode of HBO's Real Sports examining pot use in the NFL.

Similarly, doctors and medical groups have come to play a large role in modern discussions of execution methods, and this fact should be on display during the 10am Wednesday morning segment of All Sides with Ann Fisher on WOSU.

And the role of victims in the criminal justice system generally, and especially at sentencing, will be front-and-center before the U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow morning during the oral argument in the Paroline case.  This SCOTUSblog post provides a lengthy preview of the issues before SCOTUS in the case.

As the title of this post is meant to highlight, I see watching TV and listening to the radio and reading blogs to be great low-stress, high-learning opportunities.  I hope you all agree.