Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration

The Americas criminal justice policy reflects irrational fears stoked by politicians seeking to win election. A preeminent legal scholar argues that reform guided by evidence, not politics and emotions, will reduce crime and reverse mass incarceration. Rachel Barkow argues for an institutional shift toward data and expertise, following the model used to set food and workplace safety rules, to cut mass incarceration while maintaining public safety. Her prescriptions are rooted in a thorough cost–benefit analysis of how to cut mass incarceration while maintaining public safety.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 304 pages
\n Publication date: 29 March 2019
\n Publisher: Harvard University Press
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The criminal justice policy of the Americas is driven by irrational fears stoked by politicians seeking election. A prominent legal scholar argues that reform guided by evidence, not politics and emotions, will reduce crime and reverse mass incarceration.

The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, a form of punishment that ruins lives and makes a return to prison more likely. As awful as that truth is for individuals and their families, its social consequences are even more devastating. Recycling offenders through an overwhelmed criminal justice system, ever-mounting costs, unequal treatment before the law, and a growing class of permanently criminalized citizens are just a few of the social consequences.

With the authority of a prominent legal scholar and the practical insights gained through on-the-ground work on criminal justice reform, Rachel Barkow explains how dangerous it is to base criminal justice policy on the whims of the electorate, which puts judges, sheriffs, and politicians in office. Instead, she argues for an institutional shift toward data and expertise, following the model used to set food and workplace safety rules.

Barkows prescriptions are rooted in a thorough and refreshingly ideology-free cost-benefit analysis of how to cut mass incarceration while maintaining public safety. She points to specific policies that are deeply problematic on moral grounds and have failed to end the cycle of recidivism. Her concrete proposals draw on the best empirical information available to prevent crime and improve the reentry of former prisoners into society.

Prisoners of Politics aims to free criminal justice policy from the political arena, where it has repeatedly fallen prey to irrational fears and personal interest, and demonstrates that a few simple changes could make us all safer.

\n Weight: 594g\n
Dimension: 167 x 243 x 25 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780674919235\n \n