Not a Crime to Be Poor
Not a Crime to Be Poor

Author: Peter Edelman

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2019-07-02

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 162097553X

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Awarded "Special Recognition" by the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Awards Finalist for the American Bar Association's 2018 Silver Gavel Book Award Named one of the "10 books to read after you've read Evicted" by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Essential reading for anyone trying to understand the demands of social justice in America."—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy Winner of a special Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the book that Evicted author Matthew Desmond calls "a powerful investigation into the ways the United States has addressed poverty . . . lucid and troubling" In one of the richest countries on Earth it has effectively become a crime to be poor. For example, in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice didn't just expose racially biased policing; it also exposed exorbitant fines and fees for minor crimes that mainly hit the city's poor, African American population, resulting in jail by the thousands. As Peter Edelman explains in Not a Crime to Be Poor, in fact Ferguson is everywhere: the debtors' prisons of the twenty-first century. The anti-tax revolution that began with the Reagan era led state and local governments, starved for revenues, to squeeze ordinary people, collect fines and fees to the tune of 10 million people who now owe $50 billion. Nor is the criminalization of poverty confined to money. Schoolchildren are sent to court for playground skirmishes that previously sent them to the principal's office. Women are evicted from their homes for calling the police too often to ask for protection from domestic violence. The homeless are arrested for sleeping in the park or urinating in public. A former aide to Robert F. Kennedy and senior official in the Clinton administration, Peter Edelman has devoted his life to understanding the causes of poverty. As Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy has said, "No one has been more committed to struggles against impoverishment and its cruel consequences than Peter Edelman." And former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes, "If there is one essential book on the great tragedy of poverty and inequality in America, this is it."

Crime and Justice in America
Crime and Justice in America

Author: John T. O'Brien

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2016-06-06

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1483138372

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Crime and Justice in America: Critical Issues of the Future is a part of the Pergamon Policy Studies and is divided in five parts reflecting five broad problem areas. This collection is from authors chosen based on their exposure to the field of criminal justice and proven expertise in a particular area. The book deals with the forecasting ability of the police for developments over the whole field of public affairs. The first part is concerned with public law enforcement on local, county, state, and national government levels of the American federal system. A particular problem is discussed on each of these levels. The second problem area concerns the most confusing segment of the justice system – the move from the public to the private sector of criminal justice. The growth of campus, school police, and other private police is suggested to assist the public sector. The third part deals with organized crime, terrorism, and hostage negotiations as being grave threats to society. To fight them requires cooperation, even consolidation, and intelligence sources. Organized crime is discussed in the fourth section, where American penal laws are seemingly a reflection of religious mores. The last section covers personnel matters in the criminal justice system and anticipated developments after achieving professionalism in the police and correctional services. This book is intended for scholars, practitioners, and students of criminal justice. This text can prove useful to practitioners in the fields of sociology, psychology, and public administration. This book is also recommended for investigators and private citizens interested in the study of criminal justice.

Crime Is Not the Problem
Crime Is Not the Problem

Author: Franklin E. Zimring

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1999-05-27

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0190284927

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In Crime is Not the Problem, Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins revolutionize the way we think about crime and violence--by forcing us to distinguish between crime and violence. The authors reveal that compared to other industrialized nations, in most categories of nonviolent crime, American crime rates are comparable--even lower, in some cases. Only when it comes to lethal violence does the United States outpace other Western nations, with homicide rates many, many times greater. London and New York City have nearly the same number of robberies and burglaries each year, but robbers and burglars kill 54 victims in New York for every victim death in London. Why are the risks so much greater that victims will be killed or maimed in the United States? And what can be done to bring the death rate from American violence down to tolerable levels? The authors show how the impact of television and movie violence on rates of homicide is wildly overrated, but emphasize the paramount importance of guns. By making the crucial distinction between lethal violence and crime in general, the authors clear the ground for a targeted, far more effective response to the real crisis in American society. Crime is Not the Problem will reshape the debate about crime control in the United States.

Crime Policy in America
Crime Policy in America

Author: Shahid M. Shahidullah

Publisher: UPA

Published: 2015-11-21

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 0761866574

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The second edition of Crime Policy in America describes the process of policy-making and the substantive nature of policy directions in crime and justice in America, particularly from the beginning of the 1970s. This book examines the nature of presidential policy-making in crime and justice from Nixon to Obama, congressional policy-making since the birth of the Bill of Rights, and judicial policy-making since the promulgation of the Judicial Act of 1789. The perspective of this book is deeply historical, sociological, and legalistic. Historically, the book has explored the evolution of different policy strategies at different periods of American history; sociologically, it scrutinized the impact of the get-tough policy paradigm on crime and justice, and from a legal perspective it has examined the conflict and the consensus of Congress and the federal judiciary on different issues of crime and justice from drug crimes to sex crimes to counterterrorism. The second edition of the book has particularly illuminated the changing directions of US crime policy from the dominance of the “get tough” approach in the 1980s and 1990s to a more balanced approach to crime control and prevention in the beginning of the 21sr century.