Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American PoliticsOxford University Press, 18 nov. 1999 - 168 pages Most 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. |
Table des matières
Setting the Public Agenda | |
Creating the Crime Issue | |
From Crime to Drugsand Back Again | |
Crime and Drugs in the News | |
Crime and Punishment in American Political Culture | |
Institutionalizing Law and Order | |
Reconceptualizing the Crime Problem | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
Autres éditions - Tout afficher
Expressions et termes fréquents
administration administration’s antidrug AntiDrug Abuse Act argued asset forfeiture attitudes behavior causes of crime chapter civil rights Clinton cocaine concern about crime concern about drugs conservative crack crack cocaine Crime and Criminal crime and drug crime and punishment crime control crime issue crime problem crimerelated problems criminal justice system Criminology Cullen death penalty depicted Drug Abuse drug issue drug problem drugrelated Edsall efforts emphasized example fear of crime gettough government’s Ibid identified crime important problem increased law and order law enforcement legislation levels of public liberal mass media media coverage million nation’s most important offenders officials Penology political initiative politicians 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 tough underclass victimization violence voters welfare Willie Horton York Zimring and Hawkins