Do prisons make us safer?
Subtitle: the benefits and costs of the prison boom.
Contributors: Russell Sage Foundation.
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 354
ISBN-13: 9780871548603
Subjects: Prisons -- United States; Prison administration -- United States; Corrections -- United States
Description: "Do Prisons Make Us Safer? asks whether it makes sense to maintain such a large and costly prison system. The contributors expand the scope of previous analyses to Include a number of underexplored dimensions, such as the fiscal impact on states, effects on children, and employment prospects for former inmates." "The United States currently imprisons a greater proportion of its citizens than any other nation in the world. Until now, however, we have lacked systematic and comprehensive data on how this prison boom has affected families, communities, and our nation as a whole. Do Prisons Make Us Safer? provides a highly nuanced and deeply engaging account of one of the most dramatic policy developments in recent U.S. history."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction / Steven Raphael and Michael Stoll; title: Why are so many Americans in prison / Steven Raphael and Michael A. Stoll; title: The origins of mass incarceration in New York State : the Rockefeller drug laws and the local war on drugs / David F. Weiman and Christopher Weiss; title: The impact of prison on crime / Shawn D. Bushway and Raymond Paternoster; title: The people prisons make : the effects of incarceration on criminal psychology / Amy E. Lerman; title: Ever-increasing levels of parental incarceration and the consequences for children / Rucker C. Johnson; title: Footing the bill : causes and budgetary consequences of state spending on corrections / John W. Ellwood and Joshua Guetzkow; title: Collateral costs : the effects of incarceration on employment and earnings of young workers / Harry J. Holzer; title: Assessing the relative benefits of incarceration : the overall change over the previous decades and the benefits on the margin / John J. Donohue III.