The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice - Softcover

Reiman, Jeffrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0023992522 ISBN 13: 9780023992520

Publisher: Routledge, 1994

Synopsis

The basic premise of this text is that the criminal justice system is biased against the poor from start to finish - from the definintion of what a crime is through the processes of arrest, trial and sentencing. The author documents the extent of anti-poor bias in arrest, conviction and sentencing practices, and shows that the bias is conjoined with a general refusal to remedy the causes of the crime - poverty, poor education and discrimination. The study surveys economic and race bias at different stages in the criminal justice process and provides discussion of law, ideology, and economic bias for beginning criminal justice students. New material reflects current developments - the change in the drug problem from heroin to crack, the recent decline in crime rates, the post-Watergate attempts to treat white-colar crime more seriously and the latest constitutional change to the death penalty.

About this title

From the Back Cover

What if our criminal justice system is biased against the poor from start to finish - from the definition of what constitutes a crime through the process of arrest, trial, and sentencing?

In this best-selling text, the author argues that actions of well-off people, such as the refusal to make workplaces safe, refusal to curtail deadly pollution, promotion of unnecessary surgery, and prescriptions for unnecessary drugs, cause occupational and environmental hazards to innocent members of the public and produce as much death, destruction, and financial loss as so-called crimes of the poor. However, these crimes of the well-off are rarely treated as severely as those of the poor. Reiman documents the extent of anti-poor bias in arrest, conviction, and sentencing practices and shows that the bias is conjoined with a general refusal to remedy the causes of crime-poverty, lack of education, and discrimination. As a result, the criminal justice system fails to reduce crime. The author uses numerous studies and examples to illustrate his points, and difficult concepts are explained in a non-technical manner. The book provokes thought and discussion, even among people who disagree with its content.

One reviewer describes the text as “one of the most outstanding critiques of the criminal justice process...a book that needed to be written and needs to be published again and again... a text as relevant today as when first published in 1979.”

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0023992522
• ISBN 13: 9780023992520
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 176