The Future of Imprisonment

by Tonry, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780195161632
• ISBN10: 0195161637
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-04-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The imprisonment rate in America has grown by a factor of five since 1972. In that time, punishment policies have toughened, compassion for prisoners has diminished, and prisons have gotten worse-a stark contrast to the origins of the prison 200 years ago as a humanitarian reform, a substitutefor capital and corporal punishment and banishment. So what went wrong? How can prisons be made simultaneously more effective and more humane? Who should be sent there in the first place? What should happen to them while they are inside? When, how, and under what conditions should they bereleased? The Future of Imprisonment unites some of the leading prisons and penal policy scholars of our time to address these fundamental questions. Inspired by the work of Norval Morris, the contributors look back to the past twenty-five years of penal policy in an effort to look forward to the prison'stwenty-first century future. Their essays examine the effects of current high levels of imprisonment on urban neighborhoods and the people who live in them. They reveal how current policies came to be as they are and explain the theories of punishment that guide imprisonment decisions. Finally, thecontributors argue for the strategic importance of controls on punishment including imprisonment as a limit on government power; chart the rise and fall of efforts to improve conditions inside; analyze the theory and practice of prison release; and evaluate the tricky science of predicting andpreventing recidivism. A definitive guide to imprisonment policies for the future, this volume convincingly demonstrates how we can prevent crime more effectively at lower economic and human cost.

Author Biography

Michael Tonry is one of the nation's most respected experts on crime and punishment. The author of the highly acclaimed Malign Neglect and (with Norval Morris) Between Prison and Probation, he is director of the Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University, and Sonosky Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota. He has worked as an advisor to federal and state agencies in the United States, Australia and Canada, to national governments in Europe, and to international organizations.

CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:
Alfred Blumstein
Jeffrey Fagin
Richard S. Frase
James Jacobs
Marc Miller
John Monahan
Kevin R. Reitz
Michael Tonry
Franklin E. Zimring

Table of Contents

Contributors	viii
1. Has the Prison a Future?	3	(24)
Michael Tonry
PART I HOW MUCH IMPRISONMENT IS TOO MUCH?
2. Crime, Law, and the Community: Dynamics of Incarceration in New York City	27	(34)
Jeffrey Fagan
3. Restoring Rationality in Punishment Policy	61	(22)
Alfred Blumstein
PART II GOING IN
4. Limiting Retributivism	83	(38)
Richard S. Frase
5. Sentencing Reform "Reform" through Sentencing Information Systems	121	(36)
Marc L. Miller
PART III BEING THERE
6. Democracy and the Limits of Punishment: A Preface to Prisoners' Rights	157	(22)
Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins
7. Prison Reform amid the Ruins of Prisoners' Rights	179	(20)
James B. Jacobs
PART IV COMING OUT
8. Questioning the Conventional Wisdom of Parole Release Authority	199	(38)
Kevin R. Reitz
9. The Future of Violence Risk Management	237
John Monahan