Crime, Inequality and the State by Mary E. Vogel instant download

Crime, Inequality and the State by Mary E. Vogel instant download

Why has crime dropped while imprisonment still grows? This thoughtful, well-edited volume of ground-breaking articles explores criminal justice policy in light of recent research on changing patterns of crime and criminal careers.
Showing that prison expansion contradicts recent findings of “what works” in reducing crime and reoffending, Mary Vogel situates this development socially and historically to present a very different explanation. She argues that Western societies have shifted in recent years away form chiefly welfarist approaches towards control, surveillance and policing methods. In a context of growing social diversity, this has contributed to a crisis of authority.
Highlighting the role of conservative social and political theory in giving rise to criminal justice policies (from Schmitt and Strauss in the US to Parsons and Levitas in the UK), 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. In addition to comparing this scenario to that in social democratic countries, this volume highlights the costs – in both money and opportunity – of increased prison expansion. Among the factors explored are: • 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, hard facts and figures are accompanied by the faces and voices of the individuals and families whose lives hang in the balance. This volume uses a compelling inter-play of theoretical works and powerful empirical research to present vivid portraits of individual life experiences.
Included are works by: Robert Sampson; Michael Tonry; Eli Anderson; Charles Ogletree; Ben Bowling; Tom Tyler; Jonathan Simon; Tony Jefferson; Lorraine Gelsthorpe; William Julius Wilson; David Farrington; Rosemary Gartner; Jurgen Habermas and Elliott Currie