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Explores the contradictions between the American ideal of equality
and the realities of public policy.
"Americans have an abiding faith in punishment," asserts Anne
Schneider in her introduction of Deterrence and Juvenile Crime. Dr.
Schneider explores this "abiding faith" in her volume, overviewing
past assumptions that punishment or merely the threat of punishment
necessarily deters criminal behavior. She critically examines
specific deterrence theories and presents the methodology used in
her own research - research whose findings are often quite
disruptive to those assumptions held so long. Using data from six
experimental studies in U.S. cities, she finds that instilling a
sense of citizenship is more important in reducing future criminal
behavior than enhancing the certainty or severity of punishment.
Beyond these results, the author raises some pointed issues to
explain why perceptions of certainty and severity of punishment
generally perform so inadequately in predicting subsequent
offenses. A comparison between incarceration methods and
community-based restitution programs, as well as the implications
of policy, comprise a thorough discussion which focuses on the
future and reflects upon the role of random experiments regarding
issues of public policy initiatives.
Public policy in the United States is marked by a contradiction
between the American ideal of equality and the reality of an
underclass of marginalized and disadvantaged people who are widely
viewed as undeserving and incapable. "Deserving and Entitled
provides a close inspection of may different policy arenas, showing
how the use of power and the manipulation of images have made it
appear both natural and appropriate that some target populations
benefit from policy, while others do not not. These social
constructions of deserved ness and entitlement, unless challenged,
become amplified over time and institutionalized into permanent
lines of social, economic, and political cleavage.
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