- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
A CounterPunch Best Book of the Year
A Lone Star Policy Institute Recommended Book
"If you care, as I do, about disrupting the perverse politics of criminal justice, there is no better place to start than Prisoners of Politics."
āJames Forman, Jr., author of Locking Up Our Own
The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The social consequences of this factārecycling people who commit crimes through an overwhelmed system and creating a growing class of permanently criminalized citizensāare devastating. A leading criminal justice reformer who has successfully rewritten sentencing guidelines, Rachel Barkow argues that we would be safer, and have fewer people in prison, if we relied more on expertise and evidence and worried less about being "tough on crime." A groundbreaking work that is transforming our national conversation on crime and punishment, Prisoners of Politics shows how problematic it is to base criminal justice policy on the whims of the electorate and argues for an overdue shift that could upend our prison problem and make America a more equitable society.
"A critically important exploration of the political dynamics that have made us one of the most punitive societies in human history. A must-read by one of our most thoughtful scholars of crime and punishment."
āBryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy
"Barkow's analysis suggests that it is not enough to slash police budgets if we want to ensure lasting reform. We also need to find ways to insulate the process from political winds."
āDavid Cole, New York Review of Books
"A cogent and provocative argument about how to achieve true institutional reform and fix our broken system."
āEmily Bazelon, author of Charged
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction
- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Acknowledgments
- Index