Rand Paul faces another plagiarism claim
By: Tal Kopan, Politico.com
November 5, 2013 06:19 AM EST
The accusations of plagiarism continue to pile up for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, with new reports that an op-ed he wrote in September bears passages that closely resemble an opinion piece that had been published a week earlier.
The piece Paul wrote for The Washington Times on mandatory minimums seems to contain three paragraphs that were essentially copied from an op-ed by a senior editor of The Week, as first reported by Buzzfeed.
The instance joins a growing number of Paul’s works, including speeches, his book and congressional testimony that outlets including POLITICO, MSNBC and Buzzfeed have found to contain sections that appeared copied.
Paul wrote in one section of his September piece:
“By design, mandatory-sentencing laws take discretion away from prosecutors and judges so as to impose harsh sentences, regardless of circumstances. Since mandatory sentencing began in the 1970s in response to a growing drug-and-crime epidemic, America’s prison population has quadrupled, to 2.4 million. America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year. Drug offenders in the United States spend more time under the criminal justice system’s formal control than drug offenders anywhere else in the world.
“Most public officials — liberals, conservatives and libertarians — have decided that mandatory-minimum sentencing is unnecessary. At least 20 states, both red and blue, have reformed their mandatory-sentencing laws in some way, and Congress is considering a bipartisan bill that would do the same for federal crimes.”
That compares to editor Dan Stewart’s op-ed in The Week:
“By design, mandatory sentencing laws take discretion away from prosecutors and judges so as to impose harsh sentences, regardless of circumstances. Mandatory sentencing began in the 1970s as a response to a growing drug-and-crime epidemic, and over the decades has put hundreds of thousands of people behind bars for drug possession and sale, and other non-violent crimes. Since mandatory sentencing began, America’s prison population has quadrupled, to 2.4 million. America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year.
“Most public officials — including liberals, conservatives, and libertarians — have decided that it’s not. At least 20 states, both red and blue, have reformed their mandatory sentencing laws in some way, and Congress is considering a bipartisan bill that would do the same for federal crimes.”
(More here.)
November 5, 2013 06:19 AM EST
The accusations of plagiarism continue to pile up for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, with new reports that an op-ed he wrote in September bears passages that closely resemble an opinion piece that had been published a week earlier.
The piece Paul wrote for The Washington Times on mandatory minimums seems to contain three paragraphs that were essentially copied from an op-ed by a senior editor of The Week, as first reported by Buzzfeed.
The instance joins a growing number of Paul’s works, including speeches, his book and congressional testimony that outlets including POLITICO, MSNBC and Buzzfeed have found to contain sections that appeared copied.
Paul wrote in one section of his September piece:
“By design, mandatory-sentencing laws take discretion away from prosecutors and judges so as to impose harsh sentences, regardless of circumstances. Since mandatory sentencing began in the 1970s in response to a growing drug-and-crime epidemic, America’s prison population has quadrupled, to 2.4 million. America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year. Drug offenders in the United States spend more time under the criminal justice system’s formal control than drug offenders anywhere else in the world.
“Most public officials — liberals, conservatives and libertarians — have decided that mandatory-minimum sentencing is unnecessary. At least 20 states, both red and blue, have reformed their mandatory-sentencing laws in some way, and Congress is considering a bipartisan bill that would do the same for federal crimes.”
That compares to editor Dan Stewart’s op-ed in The Week:
“By design, mandatory sentencing laws take discretion away from prosecutors and judges so as to impose harsh sentences, regardless of circumstances. Mandatory sentencing began in the 1970s as a response to a growing drug-and-crime epidemic, and over the decades has put hundreds of thousands of people behind bars for drug possession and sale, and other non-violent crimes. Since mandatory sentencing began, America’s prison population has quadrupled, to 2.4 million. America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year.
“Most public officials — including liberals, conservatives, and libertarians — have decided that it’s not. At least 20 states, both red and blue, have reformed their mandatory sentencing laws in some way, and Congress is considering a bipartisan bill that would do the same for federal crimes.”
(More here.)
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