Osler's Razor

Yesterday I gave a lunchtime talk at my school about crime in Minneapolis. It was a wonderfully broad subject so I had a lot of fun, and there were a ton of questions afterwards.

 It's always worth it to break out of the same old lectures and try something new. I loved to see new faces in the audience, too-- some of whom will be in my 1L Criminal Law class in the Spring. 

 I started out with something that people don't think about often: That the criminal justice project is innately in tension with freedom. In other words, criminal laws restrict what people are otherwise able to do. I think such laws are necessary, but in a freedom-loving society we must be careful only to criminalize things and restrict the freedom of individuals when that actually solves a problem. 

# posted by Mark Osler @ 1:00 AM