Yesterday, actress Lindsay Lohan received a 90 day jail sentence after a judge determined Lohan had violated her probation by missing some scheduled classes. Lohan had been previously arrested on a DUI charge. Today, Lohan quotes from a Cato article that critiques the American criminal justice system for its rigid and mechanical sentencing rules. (Here are her Cato-quoting Tweets: 1, 2, 3, 4.) I have received letters from prisoners around the country who have read a Cato publication, or seen a Cato event on C‑SPAN, but this is our first celebrity tweet. The Institute is now abuzz!

I wish more celebrities would take an interest in our legal system because there is so much injustice to be found there. Alas, when celebs speak out after they have been personally caught up in the system, their calls for reform come across as self-serving — even when they are sincere. I wish more Hollywood writers would work criminal justice issues into their scripts. For example, why not write a popular character out of a show because of an arrest and a mandatory minimum sentence? In any event, we wish Ms. Lohan well and hope this is her final encounter with the criminal system.

For more Cato work on sentencing, go here. For more on criminal justice generally, go here.