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Power, politics, and crime / William J. Chambliss.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Chambliss, William J.
- Series:
- Crime & society (Boulder, Colo.)
- Crime & society
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Crime--Political aspects--United States.
- Criminal justice, Administration of--Political aspects--United States.
- Criminal justice, Administration of--Political aspects.
- Criminal justice, Administration of.
- Crime--Political aspects.
- Crime.
- United States.
- Physical Description:
- xiv, 173 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
- Other Title:
- Power, politics & crime
- Place of Publication:
- Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, 1999.
- Summary:
- In the United States today, we are on the verge of fulfilling a nightmare scenario. Parents are fearful of letting their children play in their own yards and elderly people are afraid to leave their homes. The bogeyman in this rampant panic about crime is the young black male, who, in the media and public image, is a "superpredator" lurking on every street corner ready to attack any prey that is vulnerable. But is crime in America really as bad as the public has been made to believe?
- Power, Politics, and Crime argues that the current panic over crime has been manufactured by the media, law enforcement bureaucracies, and the private prison industry. It shows how the definition of criminal behavior systematically singles out the inner-city African American. But urban minorities aren't the only victims. Although crime rates have been declining for 25 years, vast amounts of money pour into the criminal justice-industrial complex, diverting scarce resources from other social services such as education, social welfare, and health care. While in recent years downsizing has affected almost every segment of the public sector, the criminal justice bureaucracies have seen an unprecedented expansion.
- Contents:
- Introduction: Misperceptions of Crime 1
- The Rising American Prison Population 5
- The Growing Prison Economy 5
- Part 1 Propaganda
- 1 The Politics of Fear 13
- The President's Crime Commission 17
- A Shift in the Focus of Concern 17
- Nixon, Congress, and the War on Crime 21
- Recent Legislation 24
- The Consequences 27
- 2 Marketing Crime: The Politics of Crime Statistics 32
- Prisons for Profit 33
- Crime Statistics 34
- The Uniform Crime Reports 35
- Counting Crimes 36
- Dirty Tricks 39
- Police and Prosecutors' Charges 41
- Murder by Strangers 43
- Selective Reporting 45
- Teenage "Super Predators," 46
- Current Panics over Juvenile Crime 48
- National Criminal Victimization Surveys 52
- The Consequences 55
- Part 2 Practice
- 3 Finding Crime I: The Ghetto 63
- The Dirty Harrys 64
- Routine Stops 73
- The Consequences 74
- The Impact on the African American Community 75
- 4 The War on Drugs: America's Ethnic Cleansing 80
- The Impact of Decriminalization 84
- The Consequences 88
- 5 Finding Crime II: The White Lower Class 100
- The Saints 101
- The Roughnecks 106
- Two Questions 110
- The Organization of Policing 114
- As Adults 115
- Labeling and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 118
- Part 3 Implications
- 6 Trading Textbooks for Prison Cells 125
- The Fiscal Costs of Imprisonment 130
- Why? 130
- 7 Crime Myths and Smoke Screens 133
- Police Crimes 133
- The Political Smoke Screen 139
- State Organized Crime 142
- Corporate Crime 152.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 0813334861
- OCLC:
- 41497071
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