Wokking in Memphis
I've been watching the movie No One Knows About Persian Cats bit by bit--usually a few scenes at a time while I'm sitting down to eat a meal. (I watch a lot of movies this way.) It's a fictional piece about the underground indie music scene in Iran, which, like a lot of youth culture in Iran, has to exist somewhat surreptitiously to avoid legal troubles.
As I was watching scenes six through eight tonight, I was reminded of a recent article an Iranian acquaintance posted on Facebook a few days ago. The article was about the utter failure of alcohol prohibition in Iran. It reports, inter alia, that "an estimated 60 to 80 million liters came over the border last year alone"; that "when Tehran police administered random alcohol tests to city drivers, a staggering 26 percent turned out to be drunk"; and that "health officials...are now warning of a national threat to public health, citing a spike in alcohol-related ailments."
The author writes about how remarkable this phenomenon is, since Iran's prohibition delivers harsh penalties to violators, including public whippings and capital punishment. Even though the article is about Iran, part of me thinks it's a testament to how little self-reflection there is here in the U.S., the nation that is the world leader in incarceration. When excessive punishment becomes commonplace, it loses its deterrent effect. (As the last William Stuntz wrote, "Putting more offenders in prison cells increases the tangible price criminals pay for their crimes--but if done too often, it diminishes the intangible price [of social stigma] by making a stay in the nearby house of corrections an ordinary life experience. The second effect may easily overwhelm the first: meaning, more punishment may yield less deterrence.") The author doesn't seem to realize this. His editor apparently doesn't either. Or perhaps they're aware, but they assume such concepts are above the heads of their readers.
I've spent the last year involved with a books-to-prisoners program, and like a good introvert, I've done a fair share of background reading about the many flaws and dysfunctions of the criminal "justice" system; so perhaps what seems basic to me is novel, even radical, to most others.
Whatever the case, I'm reminded again of how much of the U.S. and Iran are reflections of each other, even if many of us in the former nation consider ourselves lightyears apart, culturally and politically, from Iran. But a vast gulf between popular will and public policy exists both here and there, and both countries need to shake the political control of their religious fanatics.
As I was watching scenes six through eight tonight, I was reminded of a recent article an Iranian acquaintance posted on Facebook a few days ago. The article was about the utter failure of alcohol prohibition in Iran. It reports, inter alia, that "an estimated 60 to 80 million liters came over the border last year alone"; that "when Tehran police administered random alcohol tests to city drivers, a staggering 26 percent turned out to be drunk"; and that "health officials...are now warning of a national threat to public health, citing a spike in alcohol-related ailments."
The author writes about how remarkable this phenomenon is, since Iran's prohibition delivers harsh penalties to violators, including public whippings and capital punishment. Even though the article is about Iran, part of me thinks it's a testament to how little self-reflection there is here in the U.S., the nation that is the world leader in incarceration. When excessive punishment becomes commonplace, it loses its deterrent effect. (As the last William Stuntz wrote, "Putting more offenders in prison cells increases the tangible price criminals pay for their crimes--but if done too often, it diminishes the intangible price [of social stigma] by making a stay in the nearby house of corrections an ordinary life experience. The second effect may easily overwhelm the first: meaning, more punishment may yield less deterrence.") The author doesn't seem to realize this. His editor apparently doesn't either. Or perhaps they're aware, but they assume such concepts are above the heads of their readers.
I've spent the last year involved with a books-to-prisoners program, and like a good introvert, I've done a fair share of background reading about the many flaws and dysfunctions of the criminal "justice" system; so perhaps what seems basic to me is novel, even radical, to most others.
Whatever the case, I'm reminded again of how much of the U.S. and Iran are reflections of each other, even if many of us in the former nation consider ourselves lightyears apart, culturally and politically, from Iran. But a vast gulf between popular will and public policy exists both here and there, and both countries need to shake the political control of their religious fanatics.