ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book represents an effort by a number of leading criminologists to articulate a pragmatic crime policy for America—;;a policy that combines academic insights about crime prevention with the realities of contemporary politics. It consists of four principal studies, focusing on public attitudes toward crime, prevention, alternative sanctions, and drug policy, plus two commentaries. The chapter outlines a coherent policy that centers on minimizing harm, as opposed to retribution, eliminating crime, or solving the social problems that generate criminal behavior. The studies and comments were generated by the California Crime Policy Project, which was specifically designed to address the conundrum of crime policy analysis by integrating prescriptive and descriptive discourse about crime. The California Crime Policy Project was sponsored by the California Policy Seminar, itself an effort to combine these two modes of discourse.
