ABSTRACT
Why has crime dropped while imprisonment grows? This well-edited volume of ground-breaking articles explores criminal justice policy in light of recent research on changing patterns of crime and criminal careers.
Highlighting the role of conservative social and political theory in giving rise to criminal justice policies, this innovative book focuses on such policies as ‘three strikes (two in the UK) and you’re out’, mandatory sentencing and widespread incarceration of drug offenders. It highlights the costs - in both money and opportunity - of increased prison expansion and explores factors such as:
- labour market dynamics
- the rise of a ‘prison industry’
- the boost prisons provide to economies of underdeveloped regions
- the spreading political disenfranchisement of the disadvantaged it has produced.
Throughout this book, hard facts and figures are accompanied by the faces and voices of the individuals and families whose lives hang in the balance. This volume, an essential resource for students, policy makers and researchers of criminology, criminal justice, social policy and criminal law, uses a compelling inter-play of theoretical works and powerful empirical research to present vivid portraits of individual life experiences.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |50 pages
Introduction
part One|48 pages
Bringing inequality back in to crime, law and authority
chapter Chapter 2|10 pages
Governing Amid Diversity
chapter Chapter 3|8 pages
Kickin' Reality, Kickin' Ballistics
part Two|110 pages
Crime, violence and expanding imprisonment
chapter Chapter 10|10 pages
The New Penology
part Three|60 pages
Crime and the life course
chapter Chapter 12|12 pages
All God's Children
chapter Chapter 15|12 pages
Turning Points in the Life Course
part Four|97 pages
Social and spatial structure of community
part Five|88 pages
Race, class and gender in a deindustrializing society
chapter Chapter 25|10 pages
The Code of the Streets
chapter Chapter 26|9 pages
Overcoming the Crisis in Critical Criminology
part Six|71 pages
Sentencing discretion and inequality in common law
chapter Chapter 30|15 pages
Homicide and the Death Penalty
chapter Chapter 32|18 pages
Structural Variations in Juvenile Court Processing
chapter Chapter 33|15 pages
Plea Bargaining and Its Historical Origins
part Seven|57 pages
Reimagining criminal justice
part Eight|47 pages
Governing through crime: coercion or consent?