-UC Berkeley News, May 4, 2010 by Cathy Cockrell
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2010/05/04_krisberg.shtml

We can’t simply arrest our way out of community challenges such as gangs, violent crime, or drug addiction. We need a much more comprehensive approach. Nowadays people are starting to think about a public-health response—treating these issues and behaviors just like we do AIDS or TB or a broad range of contagious diseases. The popular singer Sting is launching a national campaign to call off the war on drugs. That’s what we need, for prominent people to step up and say the military-style approach hasn’t worked.

-Contra Costa Times, May 14, 2010 by Federal Glover
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_15071061?IADID&nclick_check=1

What does it take to get off the criminal merry-go-round? “The research shows that a big factor is employment—to come out and have some financial stability,” said Barry Krisberg…. “Another crucial factor is family connections,” he continued in the Internet interview. Those inmates who stay connected to family members do substantially better upon release. “A third is transitional housing.”

The Sacramento Bee, April 13, 2010 by Jim Sanders
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/13/2674085/prison-industries-maintain-monopoly.html

“There are lots of benefits beyond just, ‘Can we go out and buy this stuff more cheaply?'” said Barry Krisberg, former president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

The Sacramento Bee, March 8, 2010 by Susan Ferriss
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/08/v-print/2590044/budget-cuts-slash-california-rehabilitation.html

“There are two logical outcomes to this,” said Krisberg, now a senior fellow at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. “One is prisons are going to become more violent,” he said, as fewer inmates engage in productive activities. “And the other,” he said, “is that there are going to be more costs associated with that and with people going back in.”

CQ Researcher, March 5, 2010 by Thomas J. Billitteri
http://www.cqpress.com/product/Researcher-Online.html (requires registration; go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)

“We have to recognize that incarceration of youth per se is toxic, so we need to reduce incarceration of young people to the very small, dangerous few,” Krisberg says. “And we’ve got to recognize that if we lock up a lot of kids, it’s going to increase crime. Nothing could be more dramatic than California, where we moved our youth prison population from 10,000 inmates to 1,500 in a decade, and crime went down.”

The Economist, February 25, 2010 Editorial
http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15580530&fsrc=rss

Barry Krisberg at Berkeley’s law school says that the guards “have priced themselves out of the market.” They can’t push for even tougher laws, he says, at a time when prisons are so overcrowded that a federal court is threatening mandatory inmate releases. And they can’t demand even more generous benefits during a fiscal catastrophe. The iron triangle—union, prison builders and Republican lawmakers—is coming apart, he thinks.

KQED Radio, February 18, 2010 Host Cy Musiker
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201002181730

“Based on past experiences, it has almost no chance of reducing crime. The best research we have is that it might move the problem around a little bit, from one neighborhood to another, but in all the areas where they’ve tried these injunctions—it’s been no permanent fix whatsoever.”

San Jose Mercury News, January 30, 2010 by Karen de Sa
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14298168?nclick_check=1

“The issue boils down to: Are these people law enforcement officers, or are they treaters and helpers?” Krisberg said. “You can’t be delivering cognitive behavioral therapy with a gun strapped to your waist. The therapeutic relationship is inhibited and destroyed by someone carrying a gun openly.”

Congressional Quarterly, October 29, 2009 by Robert C. Scott
http://www.cq.com/mycq.do (requires registration; go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)

I would say that the very legitimacy of the justice system is at stake.  And the effectiveness of our law enforcement system is certainly at stake if we cannot make progress on this issue of enormous racial disparity in the system…. The entire contribution to the very high rate of incarceration of the U.S.—highest in the world—is because of the incarceration of people of color.