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"The kids have given us some really good ideas," says Assistant Parks and Recreation Director Kelly Kollar. "They felt adults were telling them what they should do. They were really excited to have somebody ask them what they wanted to do."
(from Howell tackles teen boredom; Summer program offers beach fun, day trips by Karen Bouffard (Special to The Detroit News). Article is available online at http://www.detnews.com/2002/livingston/0205/16/d05l-491008.htm.)

Boredom is a causative link behind a number of problem behaviors such as alcohol and drug abuse, higher school dropout rates, and vandalism. Each problem behavior carries social and fiscal costs.

The current Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, recently charged with crimes by the federal government, just follows in the footsteps of previous convicted Illinois governors and a huge number of other Illinois officials convicted of crimes. What is remarkable is that in the 2008 election Illinois voters had the opportunity to recognize that they needed to use their constitutional convention opportunity to reform state government. They voted not to use it.

Which raises the question: How stupid or brainwashed are most Illinois citizens?

Electing Barack Obama president was the first step in redeeming American democracy. The second step must be indicting ex-president George W. Bush, giving him a fair trial, finding him guilty of many criminal acts and putting him in prison. Forget revenge. Think rule of law and justice.

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Augustin introduced the issue of whether resisting arrest is a valid crime in a follow-up post to the problem of police brutality. I wanted to start a separate conversation about this issue; perhaps we will eventually list this as a separate problem.

Here is what someone wrote in a youtube comment:

There is no such crime as "resisting arrest." This is a fictitious crime.
Supreme court rulings-

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Someone posted in the comments of the videos:

There is no such crime as "resisting arrest." This is a fictitious crime.
Supreme court rulings-
"An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery." State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260
"Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary." Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306.

I moved most of the dicussion that was originally here into a separate discussion.

There is a new book by Jonathan Simon of Boalt Hall Law School. I’ve not read the book, but I saw a review of it.

Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (Studies in Crime and Public Policy) (Hardcover) by Jonathan Simon

Mr. Simon also maintains a blog. Sometime I intend to read the book, but I wanted to post it here so we would all know it exists.

We pay exorbitant amounts to keep all of our prisoners incarcerated. Overcrowding leads to the premature release of dangerous inmates. The prison environment is so toxic that many who enter the system for small crimes graduate to more serious ones once they re-enter society.

How can these tragic numbers be brought down?