| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 257 pages) : illustrations |
| Series |
Critical issues in crime and society |
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Critical issues in crime and society.
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| Contents |
Introduction: Big, dark secrets, and America's prison system -- Prisons and crime -- The growth of America's prison system -- Raising questions about America's big prison system -- Explaining prison growth in the United States: the materialist perspective -- Prison effects: who gets locked up -- The imprisonment binge and crime -- The end of oil and the future of American prisons -- A consuming culture |
| Summary |
"The American prison system has grown tenfold since the 1970s, but crime rates in the United States have not decreased. This doesn't surprise Michael J. Lynch, a critical criminologist, who argues that our oversized prison system is a product of our consumer culture, the public's inaccurate beliefs about controlling crime, and the government's criminalizing of the poor. While deterrence and incapacitation theories suggest that imprisoning more criminals and punishing them leads to a reduction in crime, case studies, such as one focusing on the New York City jail system between 1993 and 2003, show that a reduction in crime is unrelated to the size of jail populations. Although we are locking away more people, Lynch explains that we are not targeting the worst offenders. Prison populations are comprised of the poor, and many are incarcerated for relatively minor robberies and violence. America's prison expansion focused on this group to the exclusion of corporate and white collar offenders who create hazardous workplace and environmental conditions that lead to deaths and injuries, and enormous economic crimes. If America truly wants to reduce crime, Lynch urges readers to rethink cultural values that equate bigger with better."--JSTOR website (viewed May 26, 2017) |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-251) and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Criminals -- Rehabilitation -- United States
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Imprisonment -- United States
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Criminal justice, Administration of -- United States.
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Criminal law.
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Criminals
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Criminal Law
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criminal law.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Penology.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Criminology.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Penology.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Criminology.
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Criminal law
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Criminal justice, Administration of
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Criminals -- Rehabilitation
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Imprisonment
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Kriminalpolitik
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Strafvollzug
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Kriminalpolitik
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Strafvollzug
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Social Welfare & Social Work.
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Social Sciences.
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Criminology, Penology & Juvenile Delinquency.
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| SUBJECT |
United States https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D014481 |
| Subject |
United States
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USA
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USA.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
2007000027 |
| ISBN |
9780813541402 |
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0813541409 |
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