Imprisoning communities : how mass incarceration makes disadvantaged neighborhoods worse / Todd R. Clear.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clear, Todd R.

Contributor:

Oxford Scholarship Online.

Lipman Criminology Library Fund.

Series:

Studies in crime and public policy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Imprisonment--Social aspects--United States.

Imprisonment.

Social problems--United States.

Social problems.

Imprisonment--Social aspects.

United States.

Urban poor--United States.

Urban poor.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 255 pages) : illustrations, map.

polychrome

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2007]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

At no time in history, and certainly in no other democratic society, have prisons been filled so quickly and to such capacity than in the United States. And nowhere has this growth been more concentrated than in the disadvantaged - and primarily minorit- neighborhoods of America's largest urban cities. In the most impoverished places, as much as 20% of the adult men are locked up on any given day, and there is hardly a family without a father, son, brother, or uncle who has not been behind bars. While the effects of going to and returning home from prison are well-documented, little attention has been paid to the impact of removal on neighborhoods where large numbers of individuals have been imprisoned. In the first detailed, empirical exploration of the effects of mass incarceration on poor places, this book demonstrates that in high doses incarceration contributes to the very social problems it is intended to solve - it breaks up family and social networks; deprives siblings, spouses, and parents of emotional and financial support; threatens the economic and political infrastructure of already struggling neighborhoods; and destabilizes the community, thus further reducing public safety. Especially at risk are children who, research shows, are more likely to commit a crime if a father or brother has been to prison. Demonstrating that the current incarceration policy in urban America does more harm than good, from increasing crime to widening racial disparities and diminished life chances for youths, the book argues that we cannot overcome the problem of mass incarceration concentrated in poor places without incorporating an idea of community justice into our failing correctional and criminal justice systems.

Contents:

1 The Problem of Concentrated Incarceration; 2 Incarceration and Crime; 3 The Problem of Mass Incarceration Concentrated in Poor Places; 4 Communities, Coercive Mobility, and Public Safety; 5 Death by a Thousand Little Cuts: Studies of the Impact of Incarceration; 6 In Their Own Voices: People in High-Incarceration Communities Talk about the Impact of Incarceration; 7 The Impact of Incarceration on Community Safety; 8 Dealing with Concentrated Incarceration: The Case for Community Justice; Appendix: Imagining a Strategy of Community Justice; Bibliography; Index;

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [225]-247) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Lipman Criminology Library Fund.

Other Format:

Print version: Clear, Todd R. Imprisoning communities.

ISBN:

9780198041672

0198041675

0195305795

9780195305791

OCLC:

180204434

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.