ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 has three main objectives: 1) to examine the exclusive focus on police and prison as the response to America’s high crime rate, and the limited role they played in causing a decline in crime rates, 2) to review the “excuses” that are made for our high crime rates, and how we choose to have the crime rates we do, and 3) to outline the Pyrrhic defeat theory to explain the continued existence over decades of policies that fail to reduce crime. The subtitle of Chapter 1 , “Nothing Succeeds Like Failure, ” highlights an important aspect of the larger argument: the criminal justice system is failing even if crime rates are down from all-time highs. “Tough on crime” policies had little to do with the reductions in crime rates, and mass incarceration had some “backfire” effects that promoted crime. Crime rates in the U.S. are still high compared to other developed countries. They are now down to the rates experienced during the 1970s, when crime was seen as an alarming problem. Policies targeting sources of crime (inequality, guns, prison, drug policy), and evidence-based policies about what works to reduce crime, have not been seriously considered. Ultimately, American criminal justice policy makes more sense if we look at the system as wanting to have high crime ratesthere are groups for whom “crime pays” and for whom the system’s failure is a success.
