Rectifying the fact that little criminological attention has been paid to the notion that the security of flows increasingly embodies concerns at the heart of contemporary policing practices, this book makes a significant contribution to knowledge about the policing and security governance of flows. The book focuses on how the growing centrality of flows affects both contemporary 'risks' and the policing organisations in charge of managing them. The contributors analyse flows such as event security; border controls and migration; the movement of animal parts; security-related intelligence; and organisational flows. The emerging criminology of these, as well as flows of money, information and numerous commodities, from pharmaceuticals to minerals or malicious software, is leading to critical advances in the understanding of the changing harm landscapes and the practices that have developed to manage them. Taken as a whole, the book opens up the conversation, and encourages the invention of new conceptual, theoretical and methodological tools to help criminology tackle and better understand the mobile world in which we live. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Crime.

This book examines the control of prison disorder through the application of situational crime prevention principles. It spans two subject areas--crime prevention and corrections--and may interest academics as well as practitioners in these fields. On one hand, the book presents a new model of situational prevention that has applications beyond institutions to community settings. On the other, the examination of particular problem behaviors provides a comprehensive review of the prison control literature that does not depend upon a specific interest in situational crime prevention.

How did ideas about crime and criminals change in Europe from around 1750 to 1940? How did European states respond to these changes with the development of police and penal institutions? Clive Emsley attempts to address these questions using recent research on the history of crime and criminal justice in Europe. Exploring the subject chronologically, he addresses the forms of offending, the changing interpretations and understandings of that offending at both elite and popular levels, and how the emerging nation states of the period responded to criminal activity by the development of police forces and the refinement of forms of punishment.
The book focuses on the comparative nature in which different states studied each other and their institutions, and the ways in which different reformers exchanged ideas and investigated policing and penal experiments in other countries. It also explores the theoretical issues underpinning recent research, emphasising that the changes in ideas on crime and criminals were neither linear nor circular, and demonstrating clearly that many ideas hailed as new by contemporary politicians and in current debate on crime and its 'solutions', have a very long and illustrious history.

This volume makes a case for engaging critical approaches for teaching adults in prison higher education (or "college-in-prison") programs. This book not only contextualizes pedagogy within the specialized and growing niche of prison instruction, but also addresses prison abolition, reentry, and educational equity. Chapters are written by prison instructors, currently incarcerated students, and formerly incarcerated students, providing a variety of perspectives on the many roadblocks and ambitions of teaching and learning in carceral settings. All unapologetic advocates of increasing access to higher education for people in prison, contributors discuss the high stakes of teaching incarcerated individuals and address the dynamics, conditions, and challenges of doing such work. The type of instruction that contributors advocate is transferable beyond prisons to traditional campus settings. Hence, the lessons of this volume will not only support readers in becoming more thoughtful prison educators and program administrators, but also in becoming better teachers who can employ critical, democratic pedagogy in a range of contexts.

In the mid-1990s, as public trust in big government was near an all-time low, 80% of Americans told Gallup that they supported the death penalty. Why did people who didn't trust government to regulate the economy or provide daily services nonetheless believe that it should have the power to put its citizens to death? That question is at the heart of Executing Freedom, a powerful, wide-ranging examination of the place of the death penalty in American culture and how it has changed over the years. Drawing on an array of sources, including congressional hearings and campaign speeches, true crime classics like In Cold Blood, and films like Dead Man Walking, Daniel LaChance shows how attitudes toward the death penalty have reflected broader shifts in Americans' thinking about the relationship between the individual and the state. Emerging from the height of 1970s disillusion, the simplicity and moral power of the death penalty became a potent symbol for many Americans of what government could do-and LaChance argues, fascinatingly, that it's the very failure of capital punishment to live up to that mythology that could prove its eventual undoing in the United States.

A Special Issue of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons dedicated to the Political Prisoners of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, in the words of the political prisoners themselves, along with those in exile and former political prisoners. Despite the criminal justice system's attempts to thwart the content of this publication, submissions were collected, experiences were recorded, and events, experiences and thoughts occurring over the 40 years that have passed since the forming of the Black Panther Party have been addressed in this issue of the JPP.

More than 30 years after the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, it is still plagued with egregious problems. Issues of wrongful conviction, inhumane practices, and its efficacy as a deterrent are hotly debated topics. As of August 2007, two-thirds of the world's countries have abolished the death penalty. Today, the US falls alongside Iran, Iraq, Sudan, China, and Pakistan as countries that continue to believe the death penalty is a necessary and productive practice.
Compiling articles and essays from leading experts, The Death Penalty Today presents an in-depth examination of the current points of debate. The first of two sections focuses on miscarriages of justice, including errors in conviction and possible remedies. It reviews 13 death penalty study commissions that reveal potential causes of wrongful conviction and discusses relevant factors such as geography, timeframe, and race. The first section also considers the responsibility of the state for reintegration of the wrongfully convicted after exoneration, as well as flaws with the ability of lethal injections to produce a "humane" and "painless" death.
The second section addresses death penalty opinion with a survey of scholarly experts as well as a survey of mid-level police managers. It considers the criminalization of reporting, televising, and photographing executions and the implications to the first amendment and government accountability. It reveals the phenomenon of consensual executions as assisted suicide and the curious dichotomy in logic between the reviled practice of lynching and its close cousin-the government sanctioned execution.
With lucid arguments supported by verifiable statisticsand expert opinion, The Death Penalty Today provides a sober look at the death penalty in the US and begs the question of when, not if, the US will join the majority of the civilized world in its abolition.

The contributions of the writers attest to the immediacy of the many questions that have arisen concerning "political prisoners and detainees," across the globe. The insecurity narratives of the neo-conservative politics and state institutions of control that grip much of the West, would have us believe that the attacks of September 11, 2001, constitute a breach with the past that has moved us to a new reality, exemplified by the need for a war on terror. Indeed in U.S.A., with its global imperialist entanglements, the public and private narratives appear to assume that a new world order has emerged. The benefits of this conclusion for established criminal justice and carceral industries are considerable. Roll backs of human and civil rights, the suspension of the rule of law, abrogation of the United Nations' Minimum Rules of Imprisonment, career advancement, and profit for industrial players, all serve established interests of the prison-industrial complex.

This volume of the JPP looks at the aging process inside prisons, where every problem is amplifi ed by the prisoner's age. From the changing nature of dreams, valiant attempts to forestall mental decline, and thwarted attempts to access education, to the pain of watching children grow up without them, and the impossibility of adequate care in their declining years, prisoners share the desperation of growing old behind bars. Even in the stultifying environment of prison, however, personal growth can and does fl ourish and prisoners can contribute in many ways. Is the person who committed a crime in 1965 or 1985 still the same person in 2005? The resilience of the human spirit and the power of time, even in the absence of any other encouragement towards rehabilitation, have proven themselves over and over again. But even "model prisoners" are permanently held suspect. What kind of justice system have we constructed when even professed Christians no longer believe in redemption and forgiveness? "Godot never arrived, and Vladimir and Estragon only grew older while they waited."

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"Best work of non-fiction about Virginia or by a Virginia author."
--"Manasas Journal Messenger"

"Edds's powerful telling of Washington's experience uses court documents, personal interviews, and a variety of other sources to illustrate the political and social circumstances surrounding this extraordinary case. This book invites the reader to think about how due process is carried out and implemented. An Expendable Man is a valuable study of not only the Virginia legal system, but also that of the United States."
--"Virginia Libraries"

"Explores the dark side of the system of capital punishment. The book not only goes into great detail in recording Earl Washington, Jr.'s near-execution but also incorporates some history of the Virginia legal system."
--"Criminal Justice Review"

"The book is provocative for its vivid characterization and its study of the death penalty's inherent flaws."
--" Newport News Press"

"Somewhere between the personal narratives found in H. Bruce Franklin's collection "Prison Writing in 20th-Century America," the critical work of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the recent profusion of sociological studies of America's accelerated prison economy, An Expendable Man gives us a moving portrait of a broad-based struggle on behalf of one man, and implies ways in which the halls of justice might become more just."
--"Trial & Error"

"Careful documentation. Edge-of-the-seat human drama. An exploration of loopholes in judicial safeguards against wrongful executions. An Expendable Man contains all of these--and more."
--"The Virginian-Pilot"

"An Expendable Man forcefully describes how anumber of deeply committed people resurrected the hope of an innocent man. Edds's narrative painstakingly follows the sinuous protocols of due process in America. An Expendable Man gives us a moving portrait of a broad-based struggle on behalf of one man, and implies ways in which the halls of justice might become more just."
--"Rain Taxi"

"One of the unique features of the book is its detailed explanation of the death penalty procedure in Virginia, which is second only to Texas in its number of executions."
--"Library Jounal"

"A fascinating story, told colorfully and with the law and justice the final victor."
--"New York Law Journal"

"With chilling clarity, Margaret Edds peels back the layers of the legal, judicial and social orders to explain how an innocent man comes within nine days of execution."
--William Raspberry, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for "The Washington Post"

"Earl Washington's story reveals the dark side of a system that is not known for admitting its mistakes. We have a lot to learn from this case, which highlights many of the problems we see over and over again in cases of wrongful conviction."
--Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chief sponsor of The Innocence Protection Act

"Margaret Edds' book on Earl Washington shows the heavy handedness with which our society deals with those it deems expendable. It demonstrates how the politics of the death penalty skews our moral compass and how a small group of volunteers toiled for many years to set it straight for one expendable man. Whatever your position on the death penalty, if you want to know how it actually works, read this book."
--Sister Helen Prejean

"In An ExpendableMan, Margaret Edds gives a whole new meaning to the 'Virginia Reel, ' sending the reader spinning off into dizzying fits of confusion and rage. As she carries us deeper and deeper into the Virginia justice system, one almost understands how helpless Earl Washington must have felt in the hands of those intent on killing him for something he didn't do. Edds here exposes criminal justice in Virginia as a triumph of style over substance, laying bare the ease with which the aseat of democracy' became a fortress of hypocrisy."
--Mike Farrell, actor and human rights activist

"Whether you support or oppose the death penalty, you need to understand what almost happened to a man named Earl Washington. Margaret Edds tells his tragic, arresting story with remarkable sensitivity and a clear-eyed understanding of the stakes not just for Earl Washington, but for all of us."
--Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics, University of Virginia

How is it possible for an innocent man to come within nine days of execution? An Expendable Man answers that question through detailed analysis of the case of Earl Washington Jr., a mentally retarded, black farm hand who was convicted of the 1983 rape and murder of a 19-year-old mother of three in Culpeper, Virginia. He spent almost 18 years in Virginia prisons--9 1/2 of them on death row--for a murder he did not commit.

This book reveals the relative ease with which individuals who live at society's margins can be wrongfully convicted, and the extraordinary difficulty of correcting such a wrong once it occurs.

Washington was eventually freed in February 2001 not because of the legal and judicial systems, but in spite of them. WhileDNA testing was central to his eventual pardon, such tests would never have occurred without an unusually talented and committed legal team and without a series of incidents that are best described as pure luck.

Margaret Edds makes the chilling argument that some other "expendable men" almost certainly have been less fortunate than Washington. This, she writes, is "the secret, shameful underbelly" of America's retention of capital punishment. Such wrongful executions may not happen often, but anyone who doubts that innocent people have been executed in the United States should remember the remarkable series of events necessary to save Earl Washington Jr. from such a fate.

Corruption is a problem in prisons about which we hear very little, except when there is an escape from custody or other scandal that makes the media. The closed nature of correctional institutions has made the activities that go on within them less visible to the outside world. While some persons might be inclined to dismiss correctional corruption as an issue, this view ignores the scale of criminality and misconduct that can go on in prison and the impact it can have upon not just the good order of the prison or the rights of prisoners but on the prospects for successful reintegration of ex-prisoners into society. This book is the first to examine the phenomenon in any detail or to suggest what might be done to reduce its incidence and the harms that can arise from it. Andrew Goldsmith, Mark Halsey and Andrew Groves argue that it is not enough to tackle corruption alone. Rather there should be a broader attempt to promote what the authors call 'correctional integrity'.

A convincing argument that mass incarceration neither reduces crime nor ensures safety Over two million people are incarcerated in America's prisons and jails, eight times as many since 1975. Mandatory minimum sentencing, parole agencies intent on sending people back to prison, three-strike laws, for-profit prisons, and other changes in the legal system have contributed to this spectacular rise of the general prison population. After overseeing the largest city jail system in the country, Michael Jacobson knows first-hand the inner workings of the corrections system. In Downsizing Prisons, he convincingly argues that mass incarceration will not, as many have claimed, reduce crime nor create more public safety. Simply put, throwing away the key is not the answer.

This book analyses Labour's policies of local crime control from 1997 through to 2006. Picking up on the Conservative legacy, it follows the establishment of local crime and disorder reduction partnerships and tracks developments from Labour's attempts to subject them to a centrally-imposed performance management regime, through to the emergence of a strong neighbourhoods agenda, combined with the imposition of a largely enforcement-oriented attack on anti-social behaviour. It also explores Labour's attempts to address the causes of crime through a policy agenda that has crystallised around themes of social exclusion, social capital, community cohesion and civil renewal; and that operates through an architecture that aspires to be joined up centrally and locally, and neighbourhood-based. The main focus of the book is upon the unfolding of Labour's 'third way' political project from the centre downwards, but the limitations of this project are exposed through an exploration of a number of key themes. These include Labour's dependence upon the different translations of local practitioners, with whom it engages in a discursive politics of crime reduction versus community safety, and through whom the conceptual and practical weaknesses of evidence-based practice, performance management and joined-up government are revealed.

The imprisonment rate in America has grown by a factor of five since 1972. In that time, punishment policies have toughened, compassion for prisoners has diminished, and prisons have gotten worse-a stark contrast to the origins of the prison 200 years ago as a humanitarian reform, a substitute for capital and corporal punishment and banishment. So what went wrong? How can prisons be made simultaneously more effective and more humane? Who should be sent there in the first place? What should happen to them while they are inside? When, how, and under what conditions should they be released?
The Future of Imprisonment unites some of the leading prisons and penal policy scholars of our time to address these fundamental questions. Inspired by the work of Norval Morris, the contributors look back to the past twenty-five years of penal policy in an effort to look forward to the prison's twenty-first century future. Their essays examine the effects of current high levels of imprisonment on urban neighborhoods and the people who live in them. They reveal how current policies came to be as they are and explain the theories of punishment that guide imprisonment decisions. Finally, the contributors argue for the strategic importance of controls on punishment including imprisonment as a limit on government power; chart the rise and fall of efforts to improve conditions inside; analyze the theory and practice of prison release; and evaluate the tricky science of predicting and preventing recidivism.
A definitive guide to imprisonment policies for the future, this volume convincingly demonstrates how we can prevent crime more effectively at lower economic and human cost.

As scores of death row inmates are exonerated by DNA evidence and innocence commissions are set up across the country, conviction of the innocent has become a well-recognized problem. But our justice system makes both kinds of errors-we acquit the guilty and convict the innocent-and exploring the reasons why people are acquitted can help us to evaluate the efficiency and fairness of our criminal justice system. Not Guilty provides a sustained examination and analysis of the factors that lead juries to find defendants "not guilty," as well as the connection between those factors and the possibility of factual innocence, examining why some criminal trials result in not guilty verdicts and what those verdicts suggest about the accuracy of our criminal process.

Popular Injustice focuses on the spread of highly punitive forms of social control (known locally as mano dura) in contemporary Latin America. Many people have not only called for harsher punishments, such as longer prison sentences and the reintroduction of capital punishment, but also support vigilante practices like lynchings. In Guatemala, hundreds of these mob killings have occurred since the end of the country's armed conflict in 1996. Drawing on dozens of interviews with residents of lynching communities, Godoy argues that while these acts of violence do reveal widespread frustration with the criminal justice system, they are more than simply knee-jerk responses to crime. They demonstrate how community ties have been reshaped by decades of state violence and by the social and economic changes associated with globalization.

A look at the contemporary crisis in U.S. jails with recommendations for improving and protecting the dignity of inmates Twelve million Americans go through the U.S. jail system on an annual basis. Jails, which differ significantly from prisons, are designed to house inmates for short amounts of time, and are often occupied by large populations of legally innocent people waiting for a trial. Jails often have deplorable sanitary conditions, and there are countless records of inmates being brutalized by staff and other inmates while in custody. Local municipalities use jails to institutionalize those whom they perceive to be a threat, so hundreds of thousands of inmates suffer from mental illness. People abandoned by families or lacking health insurance, or those who cannot afford bail, often cycle in and out of jails. In America's Jails, Derek Jeffreys draws on sociology, philosophy, history, and his personal experience volunteering in jails and prisons to provide an understanding of the jail experience from the inmates' perspective, focusing on the stigma that surrounds incarceration. Using his research at Cook County Jail, the nation's largest single-site jail, Jeffreys attests that jail inmates possess an inherent dignity that should govern how we treat them. Ultimately, fundamental changes in the U.S. jail system are necessary and America's Jails provides specific policy recommendations for changing its poor conditions. Highlighting the experiences of inmates themselves, America's Jails aims to shift public perception and understanding of jail inmates to center their inherent dignity and help eliminate the stigma attached to their incarceration.

Davey Sommers should've ended up in a nice job, with a nice wife, living in a nice house... Instead, he ends up an eight-man unlock in prison, serving 17 years for assaulting a police officer, possession of firearms, obtaining money by intimidation and drug dealing. But then, Davey's never done what's expected of him. We've seen how prison works from one side of the door - now Ronnie Thompson has teamed up with Davey Sommers to tell the story of what it's like from the other side. BANGED UP is a gritty account of one man's descent into crime - from small-time dealing to big time. And it's about the realities of being a 'face' in prison - having to keep your fearsome reputation intact, even while you're behind bars. Life inside is revealed in all its gory detail - the smells, the tastes, the unsavoury company (and that includes the screws). Perhaps that's why Davey thought he'd try his luck and escape rather than serve his time... This is a story of drugs, violence, life on the run and, ultimately, justice.

Police who engage in torture are condemned by human rights activists, the media, and people across the world who shudder at their brutality. Stark revelations about torture by American forces at places like Guantanamo Bay have stoked a fascination with torture and debates about human rights. Yet despite this interest, the public knows little about the officers who actually commit such violence. How do the police understand what they do? How do their beliefs inform their responses to education and activism against torture? Just Violence reveals the moral perspective of perpetrators and how they respond to human rights efforts. Through interviews with law enforcers in India, Rachel Wahl uncovers the beliefs that motivate officers who use and support torture, and how these beliefs shape their responses to international human rights norms. Although on the surface Indian officers' subversion of human rights may seem to be a case of "local culture" resisting global norms, officers see human rights as in keeping with their religious and cultural traditions-and view Western countries as the primary human rights violators. However, the police do not condemn the United States for violations; on the contrary, for Indian police, Guantanamo Bay justifies torture in New Delhi. This book follows the attempts of human rights workers to both persuade and coerce officers into compliance. As Wahl explains, current human rights strategies can undermine each other, leaving the movement with complex dilemmas regarding whether to work with or against perpetrators.

Can offenders be rehabilitated? Can this be done in ways that benefit the community as a whole, as well as offenders? This book is about the history, theory, practice and effectiveness of rehabilitation. It shows how different beliefs about the value of rehabilitation and about 'what works' have influenced criminal justice policy and practice at different times, and it identifies a number of promising approaches for the future. Everyone interested in the rehabilitation of offenders should read this book.

Unique among Western democracies in refusing to eradicate the death penalty, the United States has attempted instead to reform and rationalize state death penalty practices through federal constitutional law. Courting Death traces the unusual and distinctive history of top-down judicial regulation of capital punishment under the Constitution and its unanticipated consequences for our time. In the 1960s and 1970s, in the face of widespread abolition of the death penalty around the world, provisions for capital punishment that had long fallen under the purview of the states were challenged in federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened in two landmark decisions, first by constitutionally invalidating the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia (1972) on the grounds that it was capricious and discriminatory, followed four years later by restoring it in Gregg v. Georgia (1976). Since then, by neither retaining capital punishment in unfettered form nor abolishing it outright, the Supreme Court has created a complex regulatory apparatus that has brought executions in many states to a halt, while also failing to address the problems that led the Court to intervene in the first place. While execution chambers remain active in several states, constitutional regulation has contributed to the death penalty's new fragility. In the next decade or two, Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker argue, the fate of the American death penalty is likely to be sealed by this failed judicial experiment. Courting Death illuminates both the promise and pitfalls of constitutional regulation of contentious social issues.

Over the last quarter of a century a new system of global criminal justice has emerged; national judges have become bolder in prosecuting crimes committed abroad, special tribunals have been able to target national leaders as well as their henchmen, and a permanent International Criminal Court has been established. But how successful have these ambitious transformations been? Have they ushered in a new era of cosmopolitan justice or are the old principles of victors justice still in play? In this book, Daniele Archibugi and Alice Pease offer a vibrant and thoughtful analysis of the successes and shortcomings of the global justice system from 1945 to the present day. Part I traces the evolution of this system and the cosmopolitan vision enshrined within it. Part II looks at how it has worked in practice - focusing on the trials of some of the world s most notorious war criminals, including Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milo evi , Radovan Karad i , Saddam Hussein and Omar al-Bashir, to assess the efficacy of the new dynamics of international punishment and the extent to which they can operate independently, without the interference of powerful governments and their representatives. Looking to the future, Part III asks how the system s failings can be addressed. What actions are required for cosmopolitan values to become increasingly embedded in the global justice system in years to come?

Despite plentiful discussion at various times, the personal victim has traditionally been afforded almost no formal role in the criminal justice process. Victims' rights have always met with stout opposition from both judges and the Lord Chancellor, who have guarded defendants' rights; the maintenance of professionally-controlled and emotionally unencumbered trials; and the doctrine that crime is at heart an offence against society, State, or Sovereign. Constructing Victims' Rights provides a detailed account of how this opposition was overcome, and of the progressive redefinition of victims of crime, culminating in 2003 in proposals for awarding near-rights to victims of crime. Based upon extensive observation, primary papers, and interviews, Paul Rock examines changes in the forms of criminal justice policy-making within the New Labour Government, observing how they shaped political representations and activities centred on victims of crime. He reveals how the issues of new managerialism, restorative justice, human rights, race and racism (after the death of Stephen Lawrence), and the treatment of rape victims after the trial of Ralston Edwards came to form a critical mass that required ordering and reconstruction. Constructing Victims' Rights unpicks and explains the resultant battery of proposals and the deft policy manoeuvre contained in the Domestic Violence, Crime, and Victims Bill of 2003. This, the solution to a seemingly intractable problem, was a work of finesse, proposing on the one hand, the imposition of statutory duties on criminal justice agencies and the granting of access to an Ombudsman, and on the other, a National Victims' Advisory Panel that would afford victims a symbolic voice, and a symbolic champion: a Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses.

Why does the United States continue to employ the death penalty when fifty other developed democracies have abolished it? Why does capital punishment become more problematic each year? How can the death penalty conflict be resolved?
In The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment, Frank Zimring reveals that the seemingly insoluble turmoil surrounding the death penalty reflects a deep and long-standing division in American values, a division that he predicts will soon bring about the end of capital punishment in our country. On the one hand, execution would seem to violate our nation's highest legal principles of fairness and due process. It sets us increasingly apart from our allies and indeed is regarded by European nations as a barbaric and particularly egregious form of American exceptionalism. On the other hand, the death penalty represents a deeply held American belief in violent social justice that sees the hangman as an agent of local control and safeguard of community values. Zimring uncovers the most troubling symptom of this attraction to vigilante justice in the lynch mob. He shows that the great majority of executions in recent decades have occurred in precisely those Southern states where lynchings were most common a hundred years ago. It is this legacy, Zimring suggests, that constitutes both the distinctive appeal of the death penalty in the United States and one of the most compelling reasons for abolishing it.
Impeccably researched and engagingly written, Contradictions in American Capital Punishment casts a clear new light on America's long and troubled embrace of the death penalty.

This powerful book reveals how modern strategies of punishment--and, by all accounts, their failure--relate to political and economic transformations in society at large. Jonathan Simon uses the practice of parole in California as a window to the changing historical understanding of what a corrections system does and how it works. Because California is representative of policies and practices on a national level, Simon explicitly presents his findings within a national framework.
When parole first emerged as a corrections strategy in the nineteenth century, work was supposed to keep ex-prisoners out of trouble. This strategy foundered in the changing economy after World War II. What followed was a rehabilitative strategy, where the clinical expertise of the parole agent replaced the discipline of the industrial labor market in defining and controlling criminal deviance. Today, Simon argues, as drastic changes in the economy have virtually locked out an entire class, rehabilitation has given way to mere management. The effect is isolation of the offender, either in jail or in an underclass community; the result is an escalating cycle of imprisonment, destabilization, and insecurity.
No significant improvement in the current penal crisis can be expected until we better understand the relationship between punishment and social order, a relationship which this book explores in theoretical, historical, and practical detail.