Since the first edition of The Human Side of Disaster was published in 2009, new catastrophes have plagued the globe, including earthquakes in Haiti and New Zealand, tornadoes in Alabama and Missouri, floods in numerous locations, Hurricane Sandy, and the infamous BP oil spill. Enhanced with new cases and real-world examples, The Human Side of Disaster, Second Edition presents an updated summary of the social science knowledge base of human responses to disaster. Dr. Drabek draws upon his 40-plus years of conducting research on individual, group, and organizational responses to disaster to illustrate and integrate key insights from the social sciences to teach us how to anticipate human behaviors in crisis. The book begins with a series of original short stories rooted within actual disaster events. These stories are woven into the entire text to demonstrate essential findings from the research literature. Dr. Drabek provides an overview of the range of disasters and hazards confronting the public and an explanation of why these are increasing each year, both in number and scope of impact. The core of the book is a summary of key findings regarding disaster warning responses, evacuation behavior, initial post-impact survival behavior, traditional and emergent roles of volunteers, and both short-term and longer-term disaster impacts. The theme of "organized-disorganization" is used to illustrate multiorganizational response networks that form the key managerial task for local emergency managers. The final chapter provides a new vision for the emergency management profession-one that reflects a more strategic approach wherein disasters are viewed as non-routine social problems. This book will continue to be an invaluable reference for professionals and students in emergency management and public policy and aid organizations who need to understand human behavior and how best to communicate and work with the public in disaster situations.

This new volume, Disaster Recovery: Community-Based Psychosocial Support in the Aftermath, provides a wealth of realistic and applicable information for addressing mental health related issues resulting from disasters. It will provide readers with both a theoretical and practical look at community-based psychosocial support and community consultation from an interdisciplinary perspective. The last thirty years have brought to the fore the importance of psychosocial support as an integrator and cross-cutting theme in disaster response. The need for a timely volume on this topic at this time is based on recent world efforts to include the topic within the disaster risk reduction framework. In this volume, the authors share their practical knowledge about development of community-based psychosocial support based on the hundred of thousands of people in fourteen countries and three continents who provided an immense amount of knowledge about psychosocial support through their participation in programs. These programs helped to lead the way in sharing the strategies and tools presented in here. This book uses case study methodology and practical examples to share how communities can come together, care for themselves, and use their social capital and problem-solving skills to survive and thrive. The information in the book will aid in the development of program offerings for mental health and psychosocial support in disasters and humanitarian emergencies. The final section will provide the components of a proposal for external work and a chapter on monitoring and evaluation. The book will include case studies to help illustrate the content. Edited by Dr. Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz, a 2008 recipient of the American Psychological Association's International Humanitarian Award, the book is based on his extensive experience and existing research in the field. The information provided here will be helpful to those working in or teaching on disaster management and support, including professors and instructors, students in social work and psychology, government and non-government agencies personnel in the field in places where emerging conflicts are occurring, and many others.

In the examination of gender as a driving force in disasters, too little attention has been paid to how women's or men's disaster experiences relate to the wider context of gender inequality, or how gender-just practice can help prevent disasters or address climate change at a structural level. With a foreword from Kenneth Hewitt, an afterword from Raewyn Connell and contributions from renowned international experts, this book helps address the gap. It explores disasters in diverse environmental, hazard, political and cultural contexts through original research and theoretical reflection, building on the under-utilized orientation of critical men's studies. This body of thought, not previously applied in disaster contexts, explores how men gain, maintain and use power to assert control over women. Contributing authors examine the gender terrain of disasters 'through men's eyes,' considering how diverse forms of masculinities shape men's efforts to respond to and recover from disasters and other climate challenges. The book highlights both the high costs paid by many men in disasters and the consequences of dominant masculinity practices for women and marginalized men. It concludes by examining how disaster risk can be reduced through men's diverse efforts to challenge hierarchies around gender, sexuality, disability, age and culture.

Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedy to Deliberative Action investigates how democratic politics can unfold in creative and unexpected of ways even at the most trying of times. Drawing on three years of fieldwork in disaster-affected communities in Tacloban City, Philippines, this book presents ethnographic portraits of how typhoon survivors actively perform their suffering to secure political gains. Each chapter traces how victims are transformed to 'publics' that gain voice and visibility in the global public sphere through disruptive protests, collaborative projects, and political campaigns that elected the strongman Rodrigo Duterte to presidency. It also examines the micropolitics of silencing that lead communities to withdraw and lose interest in politics. These ethnographic descriptions come together in a theoretical project that makes a case for a multimodal view of deliberative action. It underscores the embodied, visual, performative and subtle ways in which affective political claims are constructed and received. It concludes by arguing that while emotions play a role in amplifying marginalized political claims, it also creates hierarchies of misery that renders some forms of suffering more deserving of compassion than others. The book invites readers to reflect on challenging ethical issues when examining political contexts defined by widespread depravity and dispossession, and the democratic ethos demanded of global publics in responding to others' suffering.

Leading experts address questions of public and private roles in assessing, managing, and mitigating major risks to public health and safety in light of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. "This volume provides important insights from the nation's leading experts on how we, as a community and nation, should be rethinking disaster assessment, prevention, and mitigation. Policymakers, legislators, business leaders, and scholars: this is a must-read."--Jon Huntsman, Jr., Governor of Utah "An indispensable resource for all who seek to learn from the unprecedented devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. I commend the authors for recording the valuable lessons learned. Their work will assuredly help our communities be better prepared for the next catastrophe."--James Lee Witt, former Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency "An enormously important volume that comes at just the right time. In the wake of Katrina, new thinking is urgently needed on how to manage catastrophic risk most effectively--especially regarding prevention and recovery. This precious volume offers insights on both fronts, with contributions from many of the nation's leading authorities on risk and disaster. It is a must-read for scholars and policymakers alike."--David A. Moss, Harvard Business School Hurricane Katrina not only devastated a large area of the nation's Gulf coast, it also raised fundamental questions about ways the nation can, and should, deal with the inevitable problems of economic risk and social responsibility. This volume gathers leading experts to examine lessons that Hurricane Katrina teaches us about better assessing, perceiving, and managing risks from future disasters. The 20 contributors to this volume address questions of public and private roles in assessing, managing, and dealing with risk in American society and suggest strategies for moving ahead in rebuilding the Gulf coast. Contributors: Matthew Adler, Vicki Bier, Baruch Fischhoff, Kenneth R. Foster, Robert Giegengack, Peter Gosselin, Scott E. Harrington, Carolyn Kousky, Robert Meyer, Harvey G. Ryland, Brian L. Strom, Kathleen Tierney, Michael J. Trebilcock, Detlof von Winterfeldt, Jonathan Walters, Richard J. Zeckhauser. Ronald J. Daniels is Provost and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published widely, including Rethinking the Welfare State: The Prospects for Government by Voucher (with Michael Trebilcock) and The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill (coedited with Patrick Macklem and Kent Roach). Donald F. Kettl, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, has written or edited "System under Stress: Homeland Security and American Politics," "The Global Public Management Revolution," "The Politics of the Administrative Process" (with James W. Fesler), "The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for the 21st Century," among many other books. Howard Kunreuther is Professor and Codirector of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. His has written or coedited a number of books, including "Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk" (with Patricia Grossi) and "Wharton on Making Decisions" (with Stephen Hoch). Amy Gutmann is the eighth President of the University of Pennsylvania and the author of "Why Deliberative Democracy?" (with Dennis Thompson), "Identity in Democracy, Democratic Education, Democracy and Disagreement" (with Dennis Thompson), and "Color Conscious" (with K. Anthony Appiah). Her reviews have appeared in the "New York Times Book Review," "Times Literary Supplement," "Washington Post," and other general publications.

Disaster Risk Reduction for the Built Environment provides a multi-facetted introduction to how a wide range of risk reduction options can be mainstreamed into formal and informal construction decision making processes, so that Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) can become part of the developmental DNA . The contents highlight the positive roles that practitioners such as civil and structural engineers, urban planners and designers, and architects (to name just a few) can undertake to ensure that disaster risk is addressed when (re)developing the built environment. The book does not set out prescriptive ( context blind ) solutions to complex problems because such solutions can invariably generate new problems. Instead it raises awareness, and in doing so, inspires a broad range of people to consider DRR in their work or everyday practices. This highly-illustrated text book provides a broad range of examples, case studies and thinking points that can help the reader to consider how DRR approaches might be adapted for differing contexts.

This book describes in detail disaster management principles with applications through software and early warning systems. The aim is to introduce the concept of advanced technology for disaster management. Hence, it starts with a basic introduction and the types of disasters this technology will address. It then examines these functions by taking into account various factors vulnerable to disaster losses. Finally, the results are discussed with the aid of software: OPNET and SAHANA Disaster Management Tool. The application of sensor systems to manage a disaster is also extensively discussed. Features Introduces the concept of disaster management from the perspective of application of advanced technologies for disaster management Provides an overview of applied electronics for disaster applications Examines the role of efficient and robust Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems for reduction of response time and for augmenting meaningful usage of resources during the disaster management phases of relief, response, recovery and rehabilitation

A journey through the history and science of epidemics and pandemics – from measles to coronavirus.

For centuries mankind has waged war against the infections that, left untreated, would have the power to wipe out communities, or even entire populations. Yet for all our advanced scientific knowledge, only one human disease – smallpox – has ever been eradicated globally. In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola and Zika have provided vivid examples of how difficult it is to contain an infection once it strikes, and the panic that a rapidly spreading epidemic can ignite.

But while we chase the diseases we are already aware of, new ones are constantly emerging, like the coronavirus that spread across the world in 2020. At the same time, anti-microbial resistance is harnessing infections that we once knew how to control, enabling them to thrive once more.

Meera Senthilingam presents a timely look at humanity’s ongoing battle against infection, examining the successes and failures of the past, along with how we are confronting the challenges of today, and our chances of eradicating disease in the future.

Acclaim for The Great Fire of London

"Popular narrative history at its best, well researched, imaginatively and dramatically written. . . . The author marshals his story and his mass of contemporary quotations with great skill."
– Times Literary Supplement

"The brilliance of its narrative chapters . . . a marvelous eye for evocative detail. Hanson’s prose is animated by the ferocious energy of the fire and seems to be guided by its inexorable movement. He creates the literary equivalent of the special effects in a disaster movie. . . . A rich mixture of imagination and research."
– The Daily Telegraph (London)

"He writes with knowledge and verve. As if making a television documentary on a natural disaster, he includes a gripping technical chapter on the mechanism and chemistry of combustion. This works brilliantly. . . . The book gains immeasurably from the author’s eye for detail and from his understanding of the beliefs and prejudices of the day. . . . Informative and lively account."
– The Sunday Times (London)

"The best depiction of the Great Fire seen to date. . . . He manages to describe not only the atmosphere of the event itself, but also the experience of living in seventeenth-century Britain."
– Soho Independent

"A riveting book for those who like their history with a bit of mystery."
– The Brisbane News

"A rollicking good yarn."
– The Age (Melbourne)

"Blends high-class original research with a narrative style that mimics fiction. . . . Horrific subjects have served this man well and he has a knack for plugging into the dark themes that run like molten rivers beneath our social veneer."
– New Zealand Herald

"Neil Hanson’s descriptions of the inferno are like CNN reports from Kosovo."
– Camden New Journal

"It’s not the technical data which makes the book so riveting though. It’s the flair with which Hanson invests his account with qualities usually reserved for novels–narrative drive, persuasive character sketches, vivid scene stealing."
– Sunday Star Times (New Zealand)

Natural Disaster and Development in a Globalizing World makes clear that there are links between global scale processes and local experiences of disaster, but underlies the difficulty of attributing blame for individual disasters on specific global pressures. It argues that action to reduce disaster needs to be coordinated at the local, national and global scales and that there is a need for greater integration across the physical and social sciences. In this context, the human rights agenda is seen as a way of moving disaster reduction efforts forward.

This volume is the proceedings of a NATO-sponsored Advanced Study Institute (ASI) entitled "Coping with Flash Floods" held in Ravello, Italy on 8-17 November 1999. Thirty-five participants from nine countries attended the ASI, representing both developed (United States, England, Italy, and Mexico) and developing (Poland, Uganda, Greece, Ukraine, and Slovenia) countries. Participants from a variety of professions and disciplines were involved including a hydraulics engineering professor from Slovenia, four members from the Polish Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, and a U. S. Geological Survey research hydrologist from Puerto Rico. Although the ASI was officially composed of lecturers and students, these roles were blurred as each person shared information and ideas, and learned from the other participants during the 10 days. One of the highlights of the ASI was the collaborative effort of participants from different countries and disciplines. It was particularly extraordinary that the two engineers from Greece made the most passionate pleas for long term sustainable solutions to flash floods. A further example is that while there were only three participants with social science backgrounds, most of the recommendations focus on the policy and societal priorities, more than the engineering, hydrologic or meteorologic efforts.

In 1997 disastrous flooding running through the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany took the lives of a great number of people and caused economic damage estimated in tens of billions of dollars. Flooding of the Yangtze river in 1998 killed more than 3000 people, dislocated 230 million souls, and caused direct damage of more than $ 45 billion. Both the general public and the experts are asking what we can learn from these recent events to reduce loss of life and flood damage. The 1997 floods were dealt with by experts from the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany, who presented timely reports on combatting floods, both success stories and shortcomings. This experience is further extended by reports from experts drawn from 13 other countries, developing a broad overview of flood risk management, covering the ecosystem approach to flood management, including socioeconomic issues, flood impacts on water quality, human health, and natural ecosystems.

The world's first independent black republic, Haiti was forged in the fire of history's only successful slave revolution. Yet more than two hundred years later, the full promise of that revolution - a free country and a free people - remains unfulfilled. Home for more than a decade to one of the world's largest UN peacekeeping forces, Haiti's tumultuous political culture - buffeted by coups and armed political partisans - combined with economic inequality and environmental degradation to create immense difficulties even before the devastating 2010 earthquake killed tens of thousands of people. This grim tale, however, is not the whole story. In this moving and detailed history, Michael Deibert, who has spent two decades reporting on Haiti, chronicles the heroic struggles of Haitians to build their longed-for country in the face of overwhelming odds. Based on hundreds of interviews with Haitian political leaders, international diplomats, peasant advocates and gang leaders, as well as ordinary Haitians, Deibert's book provides a vivid, complex and challenging analysis of Haiti's recent history.

'If there is any "must read" book about COVID-19, this is, without a doubt, the one.' Peter Jay Hotez, MD, PhD, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine 'Drawing on his brilliant reporting from the front lines of the fight against COVID, Gupta has produced a book filled with hope and optimism that draws on the lessons of the recent past to give people a grounded sense of how to navigate the future.' Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker Frontline Covid-19 health journalist, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has had insider access to the unfolding pandemic, including exclusive conversations with the world's top public health experts and behind-the-scenes scientists racing to find treatments and cures. And now he's sharing what he's learned in a book that will answer not only all our questions about what happened, but also about how our world will change in the years ahead, even once we're back to 'normal'. As the doctor who's been guiding us through the crisis with compassion, clarity, and well-earned wisdom, he gives you the unvarnished story behind the pandemic, including insights about the novel virus's behavior, and offers practical tools to ready ourselves for what lies ahead. He answers critical questions: Can we stamp out the virus for good (and if not, how do we live with it)? Should we put our parents in a nursing home? How do you decide when it's safe to go to a public pool or schedule elective surgery? What should Covid survivors know about protecting their future health? What if you become a long-hauler with chronic health challenges stemming? World War C will give you hope for the future along with real information that leaves you more resilient and secure. 'Part murder mystery, part practical how-to-survive guide, Dr Sanjay Gupta's World War C is a tour de force. In this riveting book, Sanjay divulges, as few others can, what you didn't hear about in the news during the pandemic, and equips us with the everyday tools to stay safe and chase life like never before.' Andy Slavitt, former senior advisor of COVID-19 response, Biden White House 'With his characteristic curiosity, compassion, and humility, combined with unparalleled talent as a master-storyteller, Dr Gupta presents the defining history of the greatest public health catastrophe of our lifetimes. This is a must-read for how we can emerge stronger as individuals and as a society.' Leana Wen, Washington Post contributing columnist, former Baltimore health commissioner and author of Lifelines

More than fifteen years later, Hurricane Katrina maintains a strong grip on the American imagination. The reason is not simply that Katrina was an event of enormous scale, although it certainly was by any measure one of the most damaging storms in American history. But, quite apart from its lethality and destructiveness, Katrina retains a place in living memory because it is one of the most telling disasters in our recent national experience, revealing important truths about our society and ourselves. The final volume in the award-winning Katrina Bookshelf series Higher Ground reflects upon what we have learned about Katrina and about America. Kai Erikson and Lori Peek expand our view of the disaster by assessing its ongoing impact on individual lives and across the wide-ranging geographies where displaced New Orleanians landed after the storm. Such an expanded view, the authors argue, is critical for understanding the human costs of catastrophe across time and space. Concluding with a broader examination of disasters in the years since Katrina-including COVID-19-The Continuing Storm is a sobering meditation on the duration of a catastrophe that continues to exact steep costs in human suffering.

Gaby and her husband Sean and their four children live in a flat across from Grenfell Tower, and Sean (a Church of England minister) was the first clergy person on the scene. This book stems from personal experience of the impact of the fire. It features the testimony of and commentary on the community that experienced it, and the amazing stories of hope that followed in its wake. Grenfell Hope will help readers understand what it was like living in North Kensington before and after the fire. It will help engage the reader with poverty issues, to examine attitudes to the poor and to consider how even small gestures in everyday life can change local communities. In the desperate situation of the fire, God was at work in people's hearts bringing hope in tiny gestures that mounted up to something enormous. Hope that couldn't be ignored or even contained. Hope sprang out all over the country.

Very few studies have been conducted to explore the vulnerability of women in the context of climate change. This book addresses this absence by investigating the structure of women's livelihoods and coping capacity in a disaster vulnerable coastal area of Bangladesh. The research findings suggest that the distribution of livelihood capitals of vulnerable women in rural Bangladesh is heavily influenced by several climatic events, such as cyclones, floods and seasonal droughts that periodically affect the region. Women face several challenges in their livelihoods, including vulnerability to their income, household assets, lives and health, food security, education, water sources, sanitation and transportation systems, because of ongoing climate change impacts. The findings have important policy relevance for all involved in disaster and risk management, both within Bangladesh and the developing countries facing climate change impacts. Based on the research findings, the book also provides recommendations to improving the livelihoods of women in the coastal communities. This book will appeal to academics, researchers and professionals in environmental management, gender and development, and climate change governance looking at the effects of and adaptation to climate change, gender issues and natural disaster management strategies.

Within the past five years, the international community has recognized that it may be possible, through programs of systematic study, to devise means to reduce and mitigate the occurrence of a variety of devastating natural hazards. Among these disasters are earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, and landslides. The importance of these studies is underscored by the fact that within fifty years, more than a third of the world's population will live in seismically and volcanically active zones. The International Council of Scientific Unions, together with UNESCO and the World Bank, have therefore endorsed the 1990s as the International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR), and are planning a variety of programs to address problems related to the predictability and mitigation of these disasters, particularly in third-world countries. Parallel programs have begun in a number of U.S. agencies.One of the most promising scientific avenues is to develop the capability to simulate these physical processes in the computer, Many of the recent models are nonlinear in significant ways, for example cellular automata or fractal growth models. They can thus be analyzed in a framework familiar to workers in complex system theory. It is often the case that the occurrence frequency of disaster events generated by the models follow power laws, perhaps with cutoffs. Thus there is a spectrum of event sizes, from small to large, that are presumably related by the nonlinear dynamics of the process. Simulation techniques can be used to study the fundamental physics of the process. Simulation techniques can be used to study the fundamental physics of the process, and most importantly, to develop meansto predict the patterns of occurrence of large events in the models and to identify precursory phenomena.

The Routledge Handbook of Human Rights and Disasters provides the first comprehensive review of the role played by international human rights law in the prevention and management of natural and technological disasters. Each chapter is written by a leading expert and offers a state-of-the-art overview of a significant topic within the field. In addition to focussing on the role of human rights obligations in disaster preparedness and response, the volume offers a broader perspective by examining how human rights law interacts with other legal regimes and by addressing the challenges facing humanitarian organizations. Preceded by a foreword by the International Law Commission's Special Rapporteur on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters, the volume is divided into four parts: Part I: Human rights law and disasters in the framework of public international law Part II: Role and application of human rights law in disaster settings Part III: (Categories of) rights of particular significance in a disaster context Part IV: Protection of vulnerable groups in disaster settings Providing up-to-date and authoritative contributions covering the key aspects of human rights protection in disaster settings, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and students of humanitarianism, international law, EU law, disaster management and international relations, as well as to practitioners in the field of disaster management.

Standing in the Need presents an intimate account of an African American family's ordeal after Hurricane Katrina. Before the storm struck, this family of one hundred fifty members lived in the bayou communities of St. Bernard Parish just outside New Orleans. Rooted there like the wild red iris of the coastal wetlands, the family had gathered for generations to cook and share homemade seafood meals, savor conversation, and refresh their interconnected lives. In this lively narrative, Katherine Browne weaves together voices and experiences from eight years of post-Katrina research. Her story documents the heartbreaking struggles to remake life after everyone in the family faced ruin. Cast against a recovery landscape managed by outsiders, the efforts of family members to help themselves could get no traction; outsiders undermined any sense of their control over the process. In the end, the insights of the story offer hope. Written for a broad audience and supported by an array of photographs and graphics, Standing in the Need offers readers an inside view of life at its most vulnerable.

Taking an in-depth look at the causes of homelessness in the United States, Joel Blau disproves the convenient myths that most homeless are crazy, drug addicts, or lazy misfits who brought their suffering upon themselves. He shows that the current crisis was an inevitable result of economic and political changes in recent decades, systematically reviewing the explanations offered by researchers, politicians and pundits, from the deinstitutionalization of mental patients in the 1960s to the gentrification of urban neighborhoods in the 1970s to the evisceration of federal spending on social welfare in the 1980s. Blau argues that current government policies at every level are mired in pointless headcounting and quick-fix solutions that only push the homeless out of sight without touching the underlying causes. He advocates social reforms ranging form a national standard for welfare benefits, a higher minimum wage, and establishment of a social sector for non-profit, affordable housing. A powerful contribution to public debate on homelessness, The Visible Poor must be read by concerned citizens as well as by policy-makers and advocates.

Dorrik A. V. Stow Editor in Chief, Association of Geoscientists for International Development ( AGID) AGID is particularly pleased to see published this latest hurricanes, floods-that are wreaking havoc, destroying report in its Geosciences in International Development livelihood and lives in some corner of the globe. Series, as a significant contribution to the onset of the UN As geoscientists there are perhaps three concerns that Decade of National Disaster Reduction, and as a mark of should be uppermost in our minds as we join an inter AGID's growing concern over the potential and actual national effort to combat the adverse effects of natural effects of geohazards throughout the developing world. hazards. The first must be to improve our scientific The problem of geohazards is increasing, not because understanding of the nature and causes of such hazards and to work towards more reliable prediction of their the rate of earth processes is accelerating, nor because the occurrence and magnitude."

'Impassioned, hugely informative, wonderfully controversial, and scary as hell' John le Carre Around the world in Britain, the United States, Asia and the Middle East, there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake our world in their image. They are the shock doctors. Exposing these global profiteers, Naomi Klein discovered information and connections that shocked even her about how comprehensively the shock doctors' beliefs now dominate our world - and how this domination has been achieved. Raking in billions out of the tsunami, plundering Russia, exploiting Iraq - this is the chilling tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed. 'Packed with thinking dynamite ... a book to be read everywhere' John Berger 'If you only read one non-fiction book this year, make it this one' Metro Books of the Year 'There are a few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books' John Gray, Guardian 'A brilliant book written with a perfectly distilled anger, channelled through hard fact. She has indeed surpassed No Logo' Independent

Across the country prisons are jammed to capacity and, in extreme cases, barges and mobile homes are used to stem the overflow. Probation officers in some cities have caseloads of 200 and more--hardly a manageable number of offenders to track and supervise. And with about one million people in prison and jail, and two and a half million on probation, it is clear we are experiencing a crisis in our penal system.

In Between Prison and Probation, Norval Morris and Michael Tonry, two of the nation's leading criminologists, offer an important and timely strategy for alleviating these problems. They argue that our overwhelmed corrections system cannot cope with the flow of convicted offenders because the two extremes of punishment--imprisonment and probation--are both used excessively, with a near-vacuum of useful punishments in between. Morris and Tonry propose instead a comprehensive program that relies on a range of punishment including fines and other financial sanctions, community service, house arrest, intensive probation, closely supervised treatment programs for drugs, alcohol and mental illness, and electronic monitoring of movement. Used in rational combinations, these "intermediate" punishments would better serve the community than our present polarised choice. Serious consideration of these punishments has been hindered by the widespread perception that they are therapeutic rather than punitive. The reality, however, Morris and Tonry argue, "is that the American criminal justice system is both too severe and too lenient--almost randomly." Systematically implemented and rigorously enforced, intermediate punishments can "better and more economically serve the community, the victim, and the criminal than the prison terms and probation orders they supplant."

Between Prison and Probation goes beyond mere advocacy of an increasing use of interdediate punishments; the book also addresses the difficult task of fitting these punishments into a comprehensive, fair and community-protective sentencing system.