Locked In
Books | Social Science / Criminology
3.9
John Pfaff
A groundbreaking reassessment of the American prison system, challenging the widely accepted explanations for our exploding incarceration rates In Locked In, John Pfaff argues that the factors most commonly cited to explain mass incarceration -- the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons -- tell us much less than we think. Instead, Pfaff urges us to look at other factors, especially a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before. An authoritative, clear-eyed account of a national catastrophe, Locked In is "a must-read for anyone who dreams of an America that is not the world's most imprisoned nation" (Chris Hayes, author of A Colony in a Nation). It transforms our understanding of what ails the American system of punishment and ultimately forces us to reconsider how we can build a more equitable and humane society.
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Author
John Pfaff
Pages
272
Publisher
Basic Books
Published Date
2017-02-07
ISBN
0465096921 9780465096923
Community ReviewsSee all
"A true and eye opening assessment of the current criminal justice system as it relates to incarceration. Despite how the media, as usual, portrays it, putting people behind bars has actually decreased over the last decade, but still remains an issue. This book uses data and facts to show that the problem isn’t the war on drugs, or private prisons which capture our attention but actually much deeper issues, like race, but not in the way it’s spun by media. With over 3300 prisons, a federal and a state prison system, and prosecutors with almost zero data on how they operate, this is a thorny issue that can’t be solved nationally."
Sheldon Rapoza