Punishment and Inequality in America

This books documents the stratification of American society; with irrefutable documentation it proves that India is far from being the only country with a caste system. The difference with us, though, is that we lock members of our lower classes into prisons generation after generation - perpetually blocking them from higher education and having the lives we all wish for our children. Ari Kohn, Seattle, WA 98145-0007

Since the 1970's, the American penal process has changed drastically from a rehabilitative focus to one of incapacitation, deterrence and punishment. This in turn caused a drastic rise in incarceration rates throughout America. In Bruce Western's book, Punishment and Inequality in America, he uses quantitative analysis to showcase an unfortunate link between the rise of incarceration with a similar rise in the number of young, black men behind bars. He also looks into the effects incarceration has on their lives and communities before and after prison.

His effective use of statistical evaluation of such hot button topics as drug use/arrests, as well as unemployment rates and domestic abuse further connect mass incarceration with the mostly taboo issue of race. For example, when looking at the overall risk of incarceration within the context of race, Western found that in 1999 alone, 60% of black men that were high school dropouts ended up in prison; a number that is three times as high as was found twenty years prior. High school dropouts in 2006 were found to have made $10,000 to $35,000 less than that of their more educated peers. Along with that fact, it's also fair to say that these men then don't possess many valuable skills required for well paying respectable jobs. When jobless rates within the population of young black dropouts from 1980-2000 were analyzed, the rate showed joblessness increasing 14%. However, when inmates of the same caliber were included, the number was actually an increase of 24%, leading to a reality that two out of three young black dropouts were without jobs during the economic expansion of the 1990's.

While strong connections were made between inequality within black communities and incarceration, I felt his analysis of political associations was incomplete. In 1964, Barry Goldwater, while running for president, was the first Republican to link the social instability of the 1960s to street crime. He created a warning to the public of a growing menace in our country to our personal safety, to life, to limb and property. This planted a seed of heightened punitive mentality within white voters and has been repeated by decades of Republican politicians. Western only focused analysis on governors from 1980-2000. He did find that limits on judicial discretion increased in most states as more Republicans came into office. And in spite of this finding, when looking for a correlation to the drop in crime from 1993-2001, as many Republicans had linked together, Western found that the effect rehabilitation, deterrence and incapacitation had on crime during the prison boom coincided with a decrease of 2-5% of serious crimes. Looking at statistics at both the state and federal level of politics would allow for a more thorough analysis. The federal level is still an issue, especially since Senator McCain and his supporters in this last election made a point to label Senator Obama with a common label used by Republicans: soft on crime. This type of message further engrains the idea of connecting crime and harsh penalties. The conclusion was equally underdeveloped with a lack of possible alternatives to the economic and political problems addressed. In the end, Punishment and Inequality in America illuminates an otherwise hushed topic of racial inequality spurred on by an American social institution and created a well-informed stepping-stone for future sociological analysis.

Millions of individuals are being incarcerated at higher rates than ever before. When compared to other developed democracies, the United States is the leader in sending it's populace to jail. In Bruce Western's Punishment and Inequality in America, he manages to shed light on just how serious the effects of mass incarceration are on our society. Throughout his book Western provides quantitative data to support his notion that mass incarceration exacerbates inequality within the United States.

He goes on to establish that incarceration can be perceived as an institutional membership for many African American males, successfully pushing the poor black minority further into a desperate standard of living which is ripe for recidivism and shattered family structures. As he states, "Black men under age forty have an incarceration rate of 11.5 percent, and are just as likely to be in prison or jail as in a labor union, and about twice as likely to be incarcerated, as to receive government benefits"(p. 19). For many black men in this country, it is common to know someone that has been incarcerated or have actually been incarcerated personally.

Western partially blames the "law and order themes" of the Republican Party for the increased punitive stance. According to Western, after the civil rights movement, there were "realigned race relations," coupled with "elevated crime rates," that led many in the Republican Party to push their get tough agendas. He points out presidents such as Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Senior all enacted more punitive crime measures. Western, however, lacks a more direct example of the actual effects of each presidential administration. It would be interesting to see how each Republican presidency contributed to the prison boom; it would also better support his political argument. No doubt each Republican administration had an effect on the state of incarceration in this country, but which one had the most serious impact is not clearly revealed.

Western concludes his book by pointing out that the prison boom had little effect on the national drop in crime rates, though provides little suggestions for alternatives. Overall it was an informative book that brings needed attention to a controversial topic affecting millions of lives.

This books brings into light fundamental findings about mass incarceration. Studying the causes and the consequences of the imprisonment boom in the US. Western demonstrates how mass incarceration increased socio-economic inequalities in American society, and particularly for African-Americans. He brings evidence that the prison boom is the product of economic and political changes, rather than evolution of crime rates (crime rate actually decreased). Western supports his claims with evidence he compiled and produces compelling tables and figures. In one of his most important findings, Western demonstrates that the economic expansion of the 90s was actually overstated because the poorest layers of the population had disappeared from statistics while incarcerated (this thesis was developped in an article with Becky Pettit). Therefore, the seemingly good performance of US economy compared to European economies has to be reassessed in the light of mass incarceration: regulated economies might not be the cause of unemployment.

Chapter 7 "Did the prison boom cause the crime drop" is probably the most difficult and controversial one. Western examines claims of Levitt and Spelman that increasing incarceration reduced crime rate, and demonstrates the lack of evidence for such a claim. Western considers that incarceration rate and crime rate are actually unrelated and mass imprisonment is the result of economic and political factors.

This is a book the policy makers and students and everyone in-between would be well served by reading. It can be a little repetitive at times, but the author makes his points well. One of the strengths of this book is that through painstaking but necessary detail in the analysis, the author shows how incarceration damages the lives of those already affected by inequality. Most authors draw correlations, but Western has been able to detail how it is not just the characteristics of those who go to prison that are responsible for recidivism, but that the process of being in prison actually exacerbates the already existing problems in social and human capital that offenders have. I would have liked the author say more about being discerning with crime policy and who should go to prison. There are some people who belong in prison, but this fact seems to be lost in the amount of evidence that is detailed in this book. This however, does not take away from the quality of the book.

The author also does a very nice job in explaining the relationship between the crime drop in the 1990s and the increase in incarceration - increased incarceration is not related to a decrease in crime. The author explains how a 66% increase in incarceration was associated with only a 2- to 5% decrease in crime, at a cost of over $50 billion clearly making the point that incarceration is not an effective means of reducing crime.

My only complaint is that the author does attack Republicans a bit much early on in his book which I believe to be counterproductive. If the author would like Republicans (those who he claims make the worst crime polices) to implement better crime policy, than he should not scare them off but rather, make them think the ideas he is espousing are their own. Just an idea.

Good book, read it.