Race to Incarcerate

Marc Mauer

• Publisher: The New Press
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9781595580221
• eBook ISBN: 9781595586667
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Civil Rights in Law
• Index: Law

A stunning examination of how the United States became the incarceration capital of the world, from one of the country’s leading experts on sentencing policy, race, and the criminal justice system

In this revised edition of his seminal book on race, class, and the criminal justice system, Marc Mauer, former executive director of one of the United States’ leading criminal justice reform organizations, offers the most up-to-date look available at three decades of prison expansion in America.

Race to Incarcerate tells the tragic story of runaway growth in the number of prisons and jails and the overreliance on imprisonment to stem problems of economic and social development. Called “sober and nuanced” by Publishers Weekly, Race to Incarcerate documents the enormous financial and human toll of the “get tough” movement, and argues for more humane—and productive—alternatives.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• PREFACE
• PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
• 1 - Introduction: The Race to Incarcerate
• 2 - The Incarceration “Experiment”
• 3 - The Rise of the “Tough on Crime” Movement
• 4 - Crime as Politics
• 5 - The Prison-crime Connection
• 6 - The Limits of the Criminal Justice System on Crime Control
• 7 - African Americans and the Criminal Justice System
• 8 - The War on Drugs and the African American Community
• 9 - What’s Class Got to Do with It?
• 10 - “Give the Public What It Wants”: Media Images and Crime Policy
• 11 - Consequences: Intended and Unintended
• 12 - A New Direction for a New Century
• NOTES
• INDEX
• Copyright Page