ABSTRACT
The practices and patterns of the politicians, media, and law enforcement agencies hide the corruption and criminality of government, corporations, and law enforcement officials. Solutions are not hard to find, but they are difficult to implement for they fly in the face of conventional wisdom and the interests of powerful institutions. It is a lead-pipe cinch that politicians will continue to use crime as a political football whenever convenient. With the exception of Jimmy Carter, every president since Lyndon Johnson has equated crime with lower-class African Americans. They have become America's modern-day "dangerous class," portrayed as a culture of "welfare queens" breeding criminal children living in a war zone of drugs and guns. Law enforcement efforts focus on policing the ghetto. The crime control industry will continue to lobby and propagandize to buttress their profits and increase the size of their bureaucracies. The opponents of reform are numerous and powerful.
