Upper Limit: How Low-Wage Work Defines Punishment and Welfare - Hardcover

Bonnet, François

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520305213 ISBN 13: 9780520305212

Publisher: University of California Press, 2019

Synopsis

Since 1993, crime in the United States has fallen to historic lows, seeming to legitimize the country’s mix of welfare reform and mass incarceration. The Upper Limit explains how this unusual mix came about, examining how, beginning in the 1970s, declining living standards for the poor have defined social and penal policy in the United States, making welfare more restrictive and punishment harsher. François Bonnet shows how low-wage work sets the upper limit of social and penal policy, where welfare must be less attractive than low-wage work and criminal life must be less attractive than welfare. In essence, the living standards of the lowest class of workers in a society determine the upper limit for the generosity of welfare and for the humanity of punishment in that society. The Upper Limit explores the local consequences of this punitive adjustment in East New York, a Brooklyn neighborhood where crime fell in the 1990s. Bonnet argues that no meaningful penal reform can happen unless living standards and the minimum wage rise again. Enlightening and provocative, The Upper Limit provides a comprehensive theory of the evolution of social and penal policy.
 

About this title

About the Author

François Bonnet is Research Fellow in Sociology and Political Science at CNRS, the French National Center for Scientific Research.

 

From the Back Cover

"A book of incredible scope, complexity, and erudition, The Upper Limit shows how paying the lowest possible wages to workers at the bottom of the labor market makes us all less secure." —Mary Pattillo, author of Black on the Block 

"An original and valuable addition to the field of contemporary punishment and society studies." —Alessandro De Giorgi, author of Re-thinking the Political Economy of Punishment

“The concept of less eligibility is essential for understanding social control policies in the modern world. This book offers readers an excellent account of how this concept explains the trajectories of punishment and welfare policy in America.  It should be read by everyone with an interest in these important subjects.” —Ahmed White, author of The Last Great Strike

From the Inside Flap

"A book of incredible scope, complexity, and erudition, The Upper Limit shows how paying the lowest possible wages to workers at the bottom of the labor market makes us all less secure." &;Mary Pattillo, author of Black on the Block 

"An original and valuable addition to the field of contemporary punishment and society studies." &;Alessandro De Giorgi, author of Re-thinking the Political Economy of Punishment

&;The concept of less eligibility is essential for understanding social control policies in the modern world. This book offers readers an excellent account of how this concept explains the trajectories of punishment and welfare policy in America.  It should be read by everyone with an interest in these important subjects.&; &;Ahmed White, author of The Last Great Strike

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520305213
• ISBN 13: 9780520305212
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 212