Crime and Punishment in America
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"Earnest, free of jargon, lucid…This is a book that ought to be read by anyone concerned about crime and punishment in America."—The Washington Post Book World
A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
When Crime and Punishment in America was first published in 1998, the national incarceration rate had doubled in just over a decade, and yet the United States remained—by an overwhelming margin—the most violent industrialized society in the world.
Today, there are several hundred thousand more inmates in the penal system, yet violence remains endemic in many American communities. In this groundbreaking and revelatory work, renowned criminologist Elliott Currie offers a vivid critique of our nation's prison policies and turns his penetrating eye toward recent developments in criminal justice, showing us the path to a more peaceable and just society. Cogent, compelling, and grounded in years of original research, this newly revised edition of Crime and Punishment in America will continue to frame the way we think about imprisonment for years to come.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The current nationwide drop in violent crime coupled with a continuing economic boom gives us the money and the breathing room to make choices about how we will approach crime in the next century, according to Currie (Reckoning: Drugs, the Cities, and the American Future). In this sobering report, he argues that we will eventually see higher violent- crime rates if we do not put greater resources into antipoverty programs instead of into continued prison building, which he sees as being, at best, a failed strategy tainted by racial bias. Currie, who teaches at Berkeley's Legal Studies program, backs up chapters on "Prison Myths" and his proposed alternatives with a wealth of studies and statistics. So much factual information is set forth from so many different sources, in fact, that the book seems muddled at times. Currie wants to use four cost-effective social programs he is certain will help achieve a sustainable, long-term lowering of crime rates. They include preventing child neglect and abuse; early intervening for at-risk youth; keeping vulnerable adolescents in school job-training programs; and investing time and money in adolescents who are already committing crimes. Although Currie makes a convincing case for his priorities, his book reads more like an academic treatise than an attempt to make his recommended social programs--which look to be a tough sell in these conservative times--anecdotally accessible. Rights (except first serial, British, electronic): Brockman Inc. Author tour.
