Deborah A. Cohen for the RAND Corporation: Even though most Americans know too much junk food is unhealthy, 90 percent consume more than experts recommend. Why? A significant underlying cause is aggressive marketing.
Americans consumed far less junk when it wasn’t so widespread. Consumption accelerated when marketers discovered they could stimulate “impulse buys” just by increasing junk food availability or salience through vending machines, at cash registers and on end-aisle displays.
Now, junk food is so visible where consumers shop for food and in so many non-food retail outlets — hardware stores, bookstores, car washes, offices — that it’s difficult for people to avoid encountering it wherever they go.
Because humans evolved in an environment of scarcity, they’re naturally drawn to foods that pack a lot of calories. They also reflexively pay more attention to food than most things in their environments. And the sight of food — especially tempting items high in salt, sugar, and fat — whets the appetite, automatically eliciting sensations of hunger and leading to greater consumption.
Marketers know this and have exploited many psychological techniques to trigger responses to junk food. Branding, for instance, is a modern application of classical conditioning. Like the bell Pavlov’s dogs associated with dinner, salivating when they heard it, familiar logos or packaging can amplify human response to junk food.
Feds shouldn’t have indicted S.C. church shooter
Jonathan Blanks for the Cato Institute: The Justice Department indicted Dylann Roof on 33 federal hate crime charges for the killings of nine people at Emanuel A.M.E. church in Charleston [in June]. This indictment is entirely unnecessary.
Hard as it may be for some to imagine now, there was a long time in this country when racially and politically motivated violence against blacks was not prosecuted by state and local authorities. Or sometimes, as in the case of Emmett Till — the young boy from Chicago who was lynched in Mississippi for allegedly being too forward with a white woman — prosecution was a farce and the perpetrators were acquitted.
But in the present case, South Carolina authorities moved quickly and effectively to catch Roof and did not hesitate to charge him with nine counts of murder. This was South Carolina’s duty, and their law enforcement officers have appeared to perform professionally and competently.
The Department of Justice should be more judicious with its funds and resources. The opportunity costs of a duplicative prosecution take resources away from crimes that fall more appropriately in the federal purview, such as interstate criminal enterprises and government corruption. [The] indictment is federal meddling in a case the state already has under control.
Even if some wholly unlikely chain of events leads to Roof’s acquittal, the Justice Department could push forward with its prosecution at that time. But, in reality, that isn’t going to happen and no one at the Department of Justice thinks it will.
Aging prison population should be examined
Abigail Flynn for the Urban Institute: Nationwide, incarcerating an aging person costs roughly double what it takes to incarcerate a younger one. This problem is especially pronounced in the federal system, where people age 50 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the federal Bureau of Prisons population — which itself has grown by 750 percent since 1980 and is experiencing serious overcrowding. This growth in both aging prisoners and the overall prison population comes at a time of increased bipartisan focus on federal prison reform.
Expanding early release for older individuals in the federal prison system — which currently only occurs through the Bureau of Prisons’ rarely used compassionate release program — can reduce population and costs. …
We know that individuals age 50 and older have the lowest rates of recidivism in the federal system, and as these people grow older, their rates of recidivism continue to decrease.
However, there is no set definition of who is “aging,” and changing who fits this definition can drastically change who qualifies for early release. In June 2015, only 5 percent of the prison population was over 60 years old, while 17 percent was over 50 years old. Meanwhile, we don’t know yet which combinations of age and time served go too far or not far enough. …
We have to consider the purpose of incarceration for aging individuals and whether that differs from the goals of incarceration for younger people.
Compiled by Nathan Rubbelke from think tank research
