incarceration: Book Recommendation

[Adam Stevens]

At 10:28 AM 3/15/99 -0500, you wrote:
>The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates of the mid-1998 prison & jail
>populations are out <http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/pjim98.txt>.
>Growth in the prison population over 1997 slowed to a mere 4.8%, from the
>6.9% growth rate since 1990. Growth in the jail population was 4.5%, vs.
>the post-1990 average of 4.9%. Since population growth in the U.S. is about
>1% a year, the incarceration rate is still rising strongly.
>
>Doug>

        Unfortunately, I've been too busy really follow the discussion on
incarceration that's been going on, but it is a subject in which I am
intensely interested.  Right now I'm taking an undergrad course at Berkeley
on criminal justice and I'd really like to recommend my professor's book.
It's called "Crime and Punishment in America," with the subtitle "Why the
Solutions to America's Most Stubborn Social Crisis Have Not Worked -- and
What Will."  The author is Elliott Currie and it's published by Holt, NY.
It's a short paperback and it's only about $13.   Currie's class is one of
the best I've ever taken and the explicit purpose of his book is to debunk
conservative theories of crime and criminal justice.  It's a recent book
(1998) and has up to date stats.  He has a whole chapter on "Prison Myths"
in which he rips on the "studies" of neocon think tanks like the Council on
Crime.

        If you want to have the facts and figures on hand to immediately
destroy any conservative idiot who says "America is too soft on crime" then
this book is a must.

        And no, I'm not getting extra credit for this plug.