When Brute Force Fails

When Brute Force Fails PDF Author: Mark A. R. Kleiman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831261
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Cost-effective methods for improving crime control in America Since the crime explosion of the 1960s, the prison population in the United States has multiplied fivefold, to one prisoner for every hundred adults—a rate unprecedented in American history and unmatched anywhere in the world. Even as the prisoner head count continues to rise, crime has stopped falling, and poor people and minorities still bear the brunt of both crime and punishment. When Brute Force Fails explains how we got into the current trap and how we can get out of it: to cut both crime and the prison population in half within a decade. Mark Kleiman demonstrates that simply locking up more people for lengthier terms is no longer a workable crime-control strategy. But, says Kleiman, there has been a revolution—largely unnoticed by the press—in controlling crime by means other than brute-force incarceration: substituting swiftness and certainty of punishment for randomized severity, concentrating enforcement resources rather than dispersing them, communicating specific threats of punishment to specific offenders, and enforcing probation and parole conditions to make community corrections a genuine alternative to incarceration. As Kleiman shows, "zero tolerance" is nonsense: there are always more offenses than there is punishment capacity. But, it is possible—and essential—to create focused zero tolerance, by clearly specifying the rules and then delivering the promised sanctions every time the rules are broken. Brute-force crime control has been a costly mistake, both socially and financially. Now that we know how to do better, it would be immoral not to put that knowledge to work.

When Brute Force Fails

When Brute Force Fails PDF Author: Mark A. R. Kleiman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831261
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cost-effective methods for improving crime control in America Since the crime explosion of the 1960s, the prison population in the United States has multiplied fivefold, to one prisoner for every hundred adults—a rate unprecedented in American history and unmatched anywhere in the world. Even as the prisoner head count continues to rise, crime has stopped falling, and poor people and minorities still bear the brunt of both crime and punishment. When Brute Force Fails explains how we got into the current trap and how we can get out of it: to cut both crime and the prison population in half within a decade. Mark Kleiman demonstrates that simply locking up more people for lengthier terms is no longer a workable crime-control strategy. But, says Kleiman, there has been a revolution—largely unnoticed by the press—in controlling crime by means other than brute-force incarceration: substituting swiftness and certainty of punishment for randomized severity, concentrating enforcement resources rather than dispersing them, communicating specific threats of punishment to specific offenders, and enforcing probation and parole conditions to make community corrections a genuine alternative to incarceration. As Kleiman shows, "zero tolerance" is nonsense: there are always more offenses than there is punishment capacity. But, it is possible—and essential—to create focused zero tolerance, by clearly specifying the rules and then delivering the promised sanctions every time the rules are broken. Brute-force crime control has been a costly mistake, both socially and financially. Now that we know how to do better, it would be immoral not to put that knowledge to work.

Charged

Charged PDF Author: Emily Bazelon
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 039959003X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A renowned journalist and legal commentator exposes the unchecked power of the prosecutor as a driving force in America’s mass incarceration crisis—and charts a way out. “An important, thoughtful, and thorough examination of criminal justice in America that speaks directly to how we reduce mass incarceration.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy “This harrowing, often enraging book is a hopeful one, as well, profiling innovative new approaches and the frontline advocates who champion them.”—Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS BOOK PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • The New York Public Library • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews The American criminal justice system is supposed to be a contest between two equal adversaries, the prosecution and the defense, with judges ensuring a fair fight. That image of the law does not match the reality in the courtroom, however. Much of the time, it is prosecutors more than judges who control the outcome of a case, from choosing the charge to setting bail to determining the plea bargain. They often decide who goes free and who goes to prison, even who lives and who dies. In Charged, Emily Bazelon reveals how this kind of unchecked power is the underreported cause of enormous injustice—and the missing piece in the mass incarceration puzzle. Charged follows the story of two young people caught up in the criminal justice system: Kevin, a twenty-year-old in Brooklyn who picked up his friend’s gun as the cops burst in and was charged with a serious violent felony, and Noura, a teenage girl in Memphis indicted for the murder of her mother. Bazelon tracks both cases—from arrest and charging to trial and sentencing—and, with her trademark blend of deeply reported narrative, legal analysis, and investigative journalism, illustrates just how criminal prosecutions can go wrong and, more important, why they don’t have to. Bazelon also details the second chances they prosecutors can extend, if they choose, to Kevin and Noura and so many others. She follows a wave of reform-minded D.A.s who have been elected in some of our biggest cities, as well as in rural areas in every region of the country, put in office to do nothing less than reinvent how their job is done. If they succeed, they can point the country toward a different and profoundly better future.

Creating Born Criminals

Creating Born Criminals PDF Author: Nicole Hahn Rafter
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252067419
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
But Creating Born Criminals is much more than a look at the past. It is an exploration of the role of biological explanation as a form of discourse and of its impact upon society. While The Bell Curve and other recent books have stopped short of making eugenic recommendations, their contentions point toward eugenic conclusions, and people familiar with the history of eugenics can hear in them its echoes. Rafter demonstrates that we need to know how eugenic reasoning worked in the past and that we must recognize the dangers posed by the dominance of a theory that interprets social problems in biological terms and difference as biological inferiority.

Criminological Theory

Criminological Theory PDF Author: J. Robert Lilly
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1506387284
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 691

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Book Description
"The best organized and most comprehensive theory textbook to use for both graduate and undergraduate students. It provides historical context to the theories, and the authors make it easier for students to relate theory to reality." —Mirlinda Ndrecka, Ph.D., University of New Haven Updated Edition of a Best-Seller! Offering a rich introduction to how scholars analyze crime, Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences moves readers beyond a commonsense knowledge of crime to a deeper understanding of the importance of theory in shaping crime control policies. The Seventh Edition of the authors’ clear, accessible, and thoroughly revised text covers traditional and contemporary theory within a larger sociological and historical context. It includes new sources that assess the empirical status of the major theories, as well as updated coverage of crime control policies and their connection to criminological theory.

American Homicide

American Homicide PDF Author: Randolph Roth
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674054547
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
In American Homicide, Randolph Roth charts changes in the character and incidence of homicide in the U.S. from colonial times to the present. Roth argues that the United States is distinctive in its level of violence among unrelated adults—friends, acquaintances, and strangers. America was extraordinarily homicidal in the mid-seventeenth century, but it became relatively non-homicidal by the mid-eighteenth century, even in the slave South; and by the early nineteenth century, rates in the North and the mountain South were extremely low. But the homicide rate rose substantially among unrelated adults in the slave South after the American Revolution; and it skyrocketed across the United States from the late 1840s through the mid-1870s, while rates in most other Western nations held steady or fell. That surge—and all subsequent increases in the homicide rate—correlated closely with four distinct phenomena: political instability; a loss of government legitimacy; a loss of fellow-feeling among members of society caused by racial, religious, or political antagonism; and a loss of faith in the social hierarchy. Those four factors, Roth argues, best explain why homicide rates have gone up and down in the United States and in other Western nations over the past four centuries, and why the United States is today the most homicidal affluent nation.

Thinking About Crime

Thinking About Crime PDF Author: James Wilson
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465048838
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
As crime rates inexorably rose during the tumultuous years of the 1970s, disputes over how to handle the violence sweeping the nation quickly escalated. James Q. Wilson redefined the public debate by offering a brilliant and provocative new argument—that criminal activity is largely rational and shaped by the rewards and penalties it offers—and forever changed the way Americans think about crime. Now with a new foreword by the prominent scholar and best-selling author Charles Murray, this revised edition of Thinking About Crime introduces a new generation of readers to the theories and ideas that have been so influential in shaping the American justice system.

America's Insatiable Demand for Drugs

America's Insatiable Demand for Drugs PDF Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drug abuse
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description


The Politics of Penance

The Politics of Penance PDF Author: Michael Griffin
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498204244
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
"Bless me Father, for I have sinned," says the penitent to open the dialogue in Catholic confessionals across the globe and throughout the ages. Along with the priest's words, "For your penance . . ." this encounter is an icon of Catholic life. But does the script, and the practices it signifies, have any relevance beyond the confessional? In The Politics of Penance, Michael Griffin responds yes. He explores great figures of the Christian tradition--the early Irish monks, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Pope St. John Paul II--to offer surprising insights for social repair. The result is a new ethic, which Griffin applies to contemporary crises in criminal justice, truth and reconciliation, and the treatment of soldiers returning from war.

Research Handbook on Modern Legal Realism

Research Handbook on Modern Legal Realism PDF Author: Shauhin Talesh
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788117778
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
This insightful Research Handbook provides a definitive overview of the New Legal Realism (NLR) movement, reaching beyond historical and national boundaries to form new conversations. Drawing on deep roots within the law-and-society tradition, it demonstrates the powerful virtues of new legal realist research and its attention to the challenges of translation between social science and law. It explores an impressive range of contemporary issues including immigration, policing, globalization, legal education, and access to justice, concluding with and examination of how different social science disciplines intersect with NLR.

The Story of America

The Story of America PDF Author: Jill Lepore
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691159599
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore investigates American origin stories -- from John Smith's account of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural address -- to show how American democracy is bound up with the history of print.