Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American PoliticsMost Americans are not aware that the US prison population has tripled over the past two decades, nor that the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the industrialized world. Despite these facts, politicians from across the ideological spectrum continue to campaign on "law and order" platforms and to propose "three strikes"--and even "two strikes"--sentencing laws. Why is this the case? How have crime, drugs, and delinquency come to be such salient political issues, and why have enhanced punishment and social control been defined as the most appropriate responses to these complex social problems? Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics provides original, fascinating, and persuasive answers to these questions. According to conventional wisdom, the worsening of the crime and drug problems has led the public to become more punitive, and "tough" anti-crime policies are politicians' collective response to this popular sentiment. Katherine Beckett challenges this interpretation, arguing instead that the origins of the punitive shift in crime control policy lie in the political rather than the penal realm--particularly in the tumultuous period of the 1960s. |
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Table des matières
Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics | 3 |
Setting the Public Agenda | 14 |
Creating the Crime Issue | 28 |
q From Crime to Drugsand Back Again | 44 |
Crime and Drugs in the News | 62 |
Crime and Punishment in American Political Culture | 79 |
Reconceptualizing the Crime Problem | 105 |
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administration Anti-Drug Abuse Act antidrug argued asset forfeiture associated attitudes behavior campaign causes of crime chapter civil rights Clinton cocaine concern about crime concern about drugs conservative crack Crime and Criminal crime and drug crime and punishment crime control crime issue crime problem crime-related problems criminal justice system Criminology depicted discourse drug abuse drug issue drug-related Edsall efforts emphasis example fear of crime get-tough Ibid identified crime important problem increased law and order law enforcement legislation levels of public liberal mass media media coverage ment million nation's most important officials Penology percentage political initiative politicians poll popular poverty President prison programs public concern public opinion punitive anticrime punitive policies racial Reagan rehabilitative Republican response rhetoric sentencing sentencing laws shift social control social problems stories street crime support for punitive television tion tough traffickers underclass victimization violence voters war on drugs welfare Willie Horton Zimring and Hawkins