Full Description
This collection examines the perennial tension between society's need to protect its citizens from crime, while assuring that the crime control and reduction measures that it enacts do not deny basic rights or exacerbate the socioeconomic inequality that gives rise to disparate rates of offending. Such tension exists in all modern societies, but it has been particularly evident in the United States, a nation whose history manifests both group inequality and an ongoing effort to reduce such inequality, assure fairness, equal protection, and due process for individuals. Focusing largely on developments in criminal justice policies and practices enacted during the last few decades, the essays in this volume explore the delicate balance between governmental crime control efforts and professed goals of promoting social justice and protecting civil liberties.
Representing disciplines ranging from criminology to economics, geography, law, sociology, and political science, the contributors critically examine and debate the nature and impact of recent and contemporary American criminal justice policies. Particular attention is paid to the impact of such policies on the nation's racial divide, but the authors use this disparity to illustrate the broader public policy paradoxes and dilemmas which lie at the heart of the struggle to control rising crime rates. Purported reforms in sentencing, the nation's growing prison population, the war on drugs and gangs, the demise of juvenile court, racial profiling and affirmative action are all grist for the mill. Contributors also ask more philosophical and epistemological questions such as the meaning of social justice, fairness, and justice and their relevance for understanding contemporary criminal justice.
Contents
Preface Overview and Commentary by Samuel Myers, Jr. From Cradle to Grave: Youths, Families, and the Political Economy of Contemporary Criminal Justice Policy Assessing the Longer-run Consequences of Incarceration: Effects on Families and Employment by William J. Sabol and James P. Lynch Individual Sentencing Practices and Aggregate Social Problems by Todd R. Clear and Dina Rose Three Strikes and You're Out: A Symbolic Crime Policy? by Nolan E. Jones Crime, Youth and the Labor Market: Are We Any Closer to Answers? by Harold L. Votey, Jr., and Llad Phillips The End of the Juvenile Court: Prospects for Our Children by Barry Krisberg Gangs, Drug Law Enforcement, Race Profiling, and Social Justice The New Blacklists: The Threat to Civil Liberties Posed by Gang Databases by Stacey Leyton Anti-Gang Initiatives as Racialized Policy by Marjorie Zatz and Richard P. Krecker, Jr. Sentencing Drug Offenders in Three Cities: Does Race/Ethnicity Make a Difference by Cassia C. Spohn and Jeffrey W. Spears Race, Cops, and Traffic Stops by Angela Davis (reprint) In Search of Probable Cause: U.S. Customs, Racial Profiling, and the Fourth Amenment by Lee E. Ross and Simon Adetona Akindes Simple Solutions?: The Complexity of Public Attitudes Relevant to Drug Law Enforcement Policy by Tracey Meares Emerging and Critical Perspectives on Crime Control and Social Justice Drug War Politics: Racism, Corruption, and Alienation by William J. Chambliss 'Justice' and Criminal Justice by David F. Greenberg Criminology as Moral Philosophy by Richard Quinney Affirmative Action and the Criminal Law by Paul Butler (reprint) At a Crossroad: Affirmative Action and Criminology by Wilson R. Palacios, Chinita Heard, and Dorothy L. Taylor On the Horns of a Dilemma: Criminal Wrongs, Civil Rights, and the Administration of Justive in African American Communities by Darnell F. Hawkins Index
