Locked in : The True Causes of Mass Incarceration-And How to Achieve Real Reform

John Pfaff

ISBN 10: 0465096913 / ISBN 13: 9780465096916

Published by Basic Books Feb 2017, 2017

Neuware - A groundbreaking reassessment of the American prison system, challenging the widely accepted explanations for our exploding incarceration rates "A must-read for anyone who dreams of an America that is not the world s most imprisoned nation." Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC s All In In Locked In, John Pfaff argues that the factors most commonly cited to explain mass incarceration -- the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons -- tell us much less than we think. Instead, Pfaff urges us to look at other factors, especially a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before. An authoritative, clear-eyed account of a national catastrophe, Locked In transforms our understanding of what ails the American system of punishment and ultimately forces us to reconsider how we can build a more equitable and humane society. Seller Inventory # 9780465096916

Synopsis:

A groundbreaking examination of our system of imprisonment, revealing the true causes of mass incarceration as well as the best path to reform

In the 1970s, the United States had an incarceration rate comparable to those of other liberal democracies-and that rate had held steady for over 100 years. Yet today, though the US is home to only about 5 percent of the world's population, we hold nearly one quarter of its prisoners. Mass incarceration is now widely considered one of the biggest social and political crises of our age. How did we get to this point?

Locked In is a revelatory investigation into the root causes of mass incarceration by one of the most exciting scholars in the country. Having spent fifteen years studying the data on imprisonment, John Pfaff takes apart the reigning consensus created by Michelle Alexander and other reformers, revealing that the most widely accepted explanations-the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons-tell us much less than we think. Pfaff urges us to look at other factors instead, including a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before. He describes a fractured criminal justice system, in which counties don't pay for the people they send to state prisons, and in which white suburbs set law and order agendas for more-heavily minority cities. And he shows that if we hope to significantly reduce prison populations, we have no choice but to think differently about how to deal with people convicted of violent crimes-and why some people are violent in the first place.

An authoritative, clear-eyed account of a national catastrophe, Locked In transforms our understanding of what ails the American system of punishment and ultimately forces us to reconsider how we can build a more equitable and humane society.

About the Author: John F. Pfaff is a Professor of Law at Fordham Law School. His work on mass incarceration, prosecutors, and criminal justice reform has been covered in The Economist, The New Yorker, the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Review, Slate, and Vox, among many others. He has a JD and a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Locked in : The True Causes of Mass ...
Publisher: Basic Books Feb 2017
Publication Date: 2017
Binding: Buch
Condition: Neu