Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within filled with dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanliness.-Matthew 23:27, KJV They say the purpose of the system is what it does, but is anyone dumb enough to believe that? Does the combination of inertia and unintended consequences not strike you as infinitely more likely than the conspiracy theories this view would require? We can grant that at a certain point, a devolved system may have as its primary output something undesirable, and in some cases a bad actor may even co-opt the broken system, transforming its purpose to what has become its main function. But that’s a rare outcome; more often, incompetence and institutional sclerosis are the culprits. But the saying persists, because of an intuitive appeal you can understand if you know a little sociology.
The Functions of Wrongful Convictions
The Functions of Wrongful Convictions
The Functions of Wrongful Convictions
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within filled with dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanliness.-Matthew 23:27, KJV They say the purpose of the system is what it does, but is anyone dumb enough to believe that? Does the combination of inertia and unintended consequences not strike you as infinitely more likely than the conspiracy theories this view would require? We can grant that at a certain point, a devolved system may have as its primary output something undesirable, and in some cases a bad actor may even co-opt the broken system, transforming its purpose to what has become its main function. But that’s a rare outcome; more often, incompetence and institutional sclerosis are the culprits. But the saying persists, because of an intuitive appeal you can understand if you know a little sociology.