Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)

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Our growing reliance on incarceration in the United States helps us to avoid confronting a host of deep and stubborn problems. The problem of mass incarceration directly affects families and communities. Elliot Currie in Crime and Punishment in America argues that there are three important tasks to be undertaken in order to address mass incarceration: investing in rehabilitation, rethinking sentencing, and reducing violence in the community through more effective police strategies. On the other hand, Bruce Western in Punishment and Inequality in America urges the United States to examine the steady rise in its economic inequality and the high unemployment levels among poor urban blacks.

While Michael Jacobson in Downsizing Prisons acknowledges the work of both Currie and Western, he calls for a new type of policy reform. By relying heavily on his own experience in budgeting and managing for corrections, he calls for reforming probation and parole as the way to reversing over twenty years of prison growth. He argues that most convicted criminals in the United States are not in prisons or jails. In fact, of the 6.7 million people under criminal justice supervision in the United States in 2002, approximately 71% or 4.7 million people have been either sentenced to probation or are on parole. As greater numbers are released, almost half will wind up back in prisons within three years. This is due in part to the politics of punishment combined with the day-to-day workings of the correctional system which poses an apparently insurmountable obstacle to the task of reversing present trends. Addressing probation and parole is logical and as Jacobson points out, it costs approximately $200 per year to supervise each person on probation or parole compared to over $20,000 for prison.

This is a must read book for anyone interested in mass incarceration and its impact. Michael Jacobson in Downsizing prisons not only highlights the problems, but puts forward a solution. He has accomplished his goal of providing a guide capable of taking us "from here to there" (pg. 222). He is aware of the Realpolitik, namely, that large-scale proposals for governmental reform must be accompanied by an achievable fiscal and political strategy for any success to be realized but also that we have to be vigilant in our efforts.

Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)

This book is but yet another siren being sounded to warn the American public to awaken from their delusional slumber. Having written a book detailing my own experiences growing up in impoverished, socially dysfunctional communities, I find the research of Professor Clear not only compelling, but reaffirming the realities tens of millions of individuals in this country face each and every day.

In fiscal 2005 Federal, State, and local governments spent an estimated $204 billion for police protection, corrections and judicial and legal activities, a 5.5% increase over the previous year. There is a vested financial interest by those who profit from maintaining the current status quo as it pertains to so called criminal justice and incarceration.

A holistic and radically different approach to dealing proactively with the conditions and elements which breed crime must be enacted. Or We the People can look forward to the Orwellian world of 1984 becoming our reality in lieu of fiction.

While it may be fair to argue that the rate/length of incarceration in this country is higher than necessary, the rest of Clear's premise is pure ivory tower hogwash. Anyone who actually "works" in the field knows that recidivists are not unfortunate tax paying citizens scooped up by over-zealous police after their first transgression. Self-report research confirms that typical criminals commit scores of crimes before they are incarcerated. They do not work or support their multiple dependents, and are a blight on the majority of their hard-working neighbors. Need I remind the author that targeted crime enforcement is often a response to the pleas of the pro-social majority to rid their communities of anti-social predators.

"Lock `em up and throw away the key." That sums up our attitude towards crime and criminals in general. We believe that imprisonment will reduce crime in our society. Today the American society has more than two million people in prisons across the nation. Prisoner population is on the rise and we are building more and more prisons. On the other hand, however crime also is on the increase; prisons do not seem to prevent it.

Todd R. Clear, distinguished professor of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and editor of the journal 'Criminology and Public Safety' demonstrates in this book that the current policy of incarceration is not only ineffective in reducing crime, but it positively contributes to its increase in our neighborhoods. Incarceration aggrevates the very problems it is intended to solve. Our criminal justice system is backfiring. Our politicians and policy makers must take note of this eye-opening book. Well researched and beautifully written, this book provides a wealth of information and food for reflection. At the same time it is an easy read.