RADLEY BALKO LOOKS AT OBAMA ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, and is disappointed.

Obama’s line on criminal justice has been a lot less encouraging. His running mate selection of Joe Biden, long one of the Senate’s most strident crime hawks and staunchest drug warriors, was telling. Since the vice-presidential pick, Obama and Biden have embraced criminal justice policies geared toward a larger federal presence in law enforcement, a trend that started in the Nixon administration and that has skewed local police priorities toward the slogan-based crime policies of Congress, like “more arrests” and “stop coddling criminals.”

I don’t think either ticket has a lot to offer us on crime policy, though I confess a particular hostility to Biden’s sponsorship of the dumb RAVE Act.