Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>
> She opens the book by recalling that in the late 1960s/early 1970s it
> was thought that prison was a fading punishment for crime. Aside from
> a little blip in the 1930s, incarceration rates had been steady for
> the entire 20th century, and were projected to start falling. A
> couple of years later, Nixon declared war on crime, and the prison
> boom was underway.
I myself don't believe what follows, and if someone else made a serious claim along these lines I would scoff at it. I offer it just as a marginal possibility to speculate on.
The War on Crime and the War on Drugs -- as almost all on this list would agree -- are mindless idiocies if they are serioulsy intended to affect either crime or drugs. Now comes the speculation:
Do these events, along with at minimum a tolerance by the media and other leaders of hysteria over pedophilia, gay marriage, abortion, etc. exhibit a real sense within ruling circles that their position is fragile? That there is real danger of mass resistance unless there is sufficient diversion?
As I say, a passing speculation.
Carrol