Reflections on Media and Politics
Category
Most people assume that in a country built on the presumption of innocence, the government cannot take your property unless you have been convicted of a crime. Most people are wro…
MHB Admin · July 28, 2026
On television, forensic science is infallible. A technician glances at a hair under a microscope, matches it to a suspect, and the case is closed. The jury nods; the audience is s…
MHB Admin · July 22, 2026
On any given night, most of the people sleeping in America's local jails have not been convicted of anything. According to the Prison Policy Initiative's most recent national acco…
MHB Admin · July 17, 2026
Two people are arrested on the same charge, in the same county, on the same night. A judge sets the same bail for both. One writes a check and sleeps in her own bed until trial. T…
MHB Admin · July 13, 2026
The public image of criminal justice is the trial: the courtroom, the jury of twelve, the evidence tested by argument, the verdict delivered after deliberation. It is the image en…
MHB Admin · July 7, 2026
There is a genre of court case with names that read like absurdist theater: United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency . State v. One 1990 Toyota . The defendant in these cases is…
MHB Admin · June 8, 2026
The media obsesses over shoplifting while the far larger theft — employers stealing wages from workers — goes uncounted, unpunished, and unnamed as crime.
MHB Admin · June 4, 2026