The Politics of Injustice; Crime and Punishment in America

by Katherine Beckett

• ISBN13: 9780761929949
• ISBN10: 0761929940
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-16
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc

Summary

The U.S. crime rate has dropped steadily for more than a decade, yet the rate of incarceration continues to skyrocket. Today, more than 2 million Americans are locked in prisons and jails with devastating consequences for poor families and communities, overcrowded institutions and overburdened taxpayers. How did the U.S. become the world's leader in incarceration? Why have the numbers of women, juveniles, and people of color increased especially rapidly among the imprisoned?The Politics of Injustice: Crime and Punishment in America, Second Edition is the first book to make widely accessible the new research on crime as a political and cultural issue. Katherine Beckett and Theodore Sasson provide readers with a robust analysis of the roles of crime, politics, media imagery and citizen activism in the making of criminal justice policy in the age of mass incarceration. is the first book to make widely accessible the new research on crime as a political and cultural issue. Katherine Beckett and Theodore Sasson provide readers with a robust analysis of the roles of crime, politics, media imagery and citizen activism in the making of criminal justice policy in the age of mass incarceration.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Acknowledgments for the Second Edition	viii
1. Criminal Justice Expansion	1	(12)
Explaining the Expansion of the Penal System	4	(3)
Outline of the Book	7	(6)
2. Crime in the United States	13	(12)
Crime in Historical Perspective	13	(6)
Crime in Comparative Perspective	19	(3)
Conclusion	22	(3)
3. Murder, American Style	25	(20)
Popular Explanations of Violence	26	(2)
Guns	28	(3)
Inequality and Homicide	31	(3)
The Ecology of Urban Violence	34	(8)
Conclusion	42	(3)
4. The Politics of Crime	45	(28)
The Origins of the Discourse of Law and Order	48	(2)
From the war on Poverty to the War on Crime	50	(10)
From the War on Crime to the War on Drugs	60	(11)
Conclusion	71	(2)
5. Crime in the Media	73	(30)
Crime in the News	73	(8)
Crime as Entertainment	81	(16)
Media Imagery and Public Opinion	97	(3)
Conclusion	100	(3)
6. Crime and Public Opinion	103	(26)
Fear of Crime	104	(3)
Crime as a Social Problem	107	(4)
Popular Punitiveness	111	(5)
Understanding Popular Punitiveness	116	(5)
Alternatives to Punitiveness	121	(4)
Minority Dissent	125	(3)
Conclusion	128	(1)
7. Activism and the Politics of Crime	129	(32)
Community-Based Crime Prevention Efforts	130	(10)
The Victim's Rights Movement	140	(9)
Adversarial Activism: Human Rights Campaigns Against Police Brutality, Capital Punishment, and the War on Drugs	149	(11)
Conclusion	160	(1)
8. Crime and Public Policy	161	(28)
Drug Policing	162	(3)
Punitive Sentencing	165	(8)
Return of Capital Punishment	173	(2)
Retreat From Juvenile Justice	175	(1)
Prisoner Warehousing	176	(3)
The Surveillance Society	179	(2)
Criminal Justice and Democracy	181	(6)
Conclusion	187	(2)
9. Alternatives	189	(16)
Social Investment	190	(2)
Harm Reduction	192	(4)
Alternative Sentencing	196	(1)
Rehabilitating Reintegration	197	(2)
Toward Disarmament	199	(2)
Community Policing	201	(3)
Conclusion	204	(1)
Notes	205	(12)
References	217	(26)
Index	243	(20)
About the Authors	263