Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics

by Katherine Beckett

Overview

Most Americans are not aware that the US prison population has tripled over the past two decades, nor that the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the industrialized world. Despite these facts, politicians from across the ideological spectrum continue to campaign on 'law and order' platforms and to propose 'three strikes'--and even 'two strikes'--sentencing laws. Why is this the case? How have crime, drugs, and delinquency come to be such salient political issues, and why have enhanced punishment and social control been defined as the most appropriate responses to these complex social problems? Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics provides original, fascinating, and persuasive answers to these questions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198027270
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/29/2000
Series:	Studies in Crime and Public Policy Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Katherine Beckett is Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Table of Contents

1. Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics2. Setting the Public Agenda3. Creating the Crime Issue4. From Crime to Drugs—and Back Again5. Crime and Drugs in the News6. Crime and Punishment in American Political Culture7. Institutionalizing Law and Order8. Reconceptualizing the Crime Problem

Editorial Reviews

Analyzes why and how crime, drugs, and delinquency have become political issues and why enhanced punishment and social control have been defined as the most appropriate responses to complex social problems. Argues that politicians have played a leading role, since the 1960s, in redefining social problems as security issues and in attempting to replace social welfare with social control as the principle of state policy. For general readers and students. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

"This is a well thought out, timely, and interesting look at one of the toughest problems in the United States."—Robert W. Langran, Villanova University

"...well-written, sharply focused....provides a useful perspective on an immensely consequential issue."—Choice

"...Beckett does an excellent job deconstructing the politics of crime policy in this country."—The ICCA Review of Books

"Beckett immerses herself in the political, social, historical, and discursive context of crime contol in America. The result is an excellent example of how interdisciplinary research can enhance our understanding of complex social phenomena."—Journal of Criminal Justice

From the Publisher