Shortcuts 12/13/12

Home of the free? Little known fact: The United States has the largest prison population in the world. Despite having only a quarter of the population, we put more people in jail than all of China.
We put more people in prison than all other developed nations combined. And most of it is for petty crimes. This is an excellent article in the New York Times about the lunacy of the US penal system. Anecdotes include: a woman serving a life sentence because her boyfriend stored cocaine in her attack.

Similarly, economist Bryan Kaplan rebuts the argument that we need more law enforcement.

Pre-English Irish Law: Fantastic piece that I had never heard of detailing Irish law before the English got involved. It debunks many myths associated with Irish history that are probably faulty because of poor translation of Old Irish text. This describes a highly stratified social structure that enabled a degree of social mobility. Notably, it seems that the Irish kings had relatively little involvement in lawmaking in a very decentralized state. Rather, a group of legal experts called brehons handled legal disputes with a system based on sureties or bonds. I'd be curious of this version of ancient Irish history is consistent with what students are taught in schools today.