Download or read book Crime and Punishment in the American Dream written by Rafael Di Tella and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We observe that countries where belief in the "American dream" (i.e., effort pays) prevails also set harsher punishment for criminals. We know from previous work that beliefs are also correlated with several features of the economic system (taxation, social insurance, etc). Our objective is to study the joint determination of these three features (beliefs, punitiveness and economic system) in a way that replicates the observed empirical patterns. We present a model where beliefs determine the types of contracts that firms offer and whether workers exert effort. Some workers become criminals, depending on their luck in the labor market, the expected punishment, and an individual shock that we call "meanness". It is this meanness level that a penal system based on "retribution" tries to detect when deciding the severity of the punishment. We find that when initial beliefs differ, two equilibria can emerge out of identical fundamentals. In the "American" (as opposed to the "French") equilibrium, belief in the "American dream" is commonplace, workers exert effort, there are high powered contracts (and income is unequally distributed) and punishments are harsh. Economists who believe that deterrence (rather than retribution) shapes punishment can interpret the meanness parameter as pessimism about future economic opportunities and verify that two similar equilibria emerge.
Download or read book The Market for Prisoners written by Laura Winig and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Crime and Punishment in the American Dream written by Rafael Di Tella and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We observe that countries where belief in the quot;American dreamquot; (i.e., effort pays) prevails also set harsher punishment for criminals. We know from previous work that beliefs are also correlated with several features of the economic system (taxation, social insurance, etc). Our objective is to study the joint determination of these three features (beliefs, punitiveness and economic system) in a way that replicates the observed empirical patterns. We present a model where beliefs determine the types of contracts that firms offer and whether workers exert effort. Some workers become criminals, depending on their luck in the labor market, the expected punishment, and an individual shock that we call quot;meannessquot;. It is this meanness level that a penal system based on quot;retributionquot; tries to detect when deciding the severity of the punishment. We find that when initial beliefs differ, two equilibria can emerge out of identical fundamentals. In the quot;Americanquot; (as opposed to the quot;Frenchquot;) equilibrium, belief in the quot;American dreamquot; is commonplace, workers exert effort, there are high powered contracts (and income is unequally distributed) and punishments are harsh. Economists who believe that deterrence (rather than retribution) shapes punishment can interpret the meanness parameter as pessimism about future economic opportunities and verify that two similar equilibria emerge.
Download or read book Introduction to Criminology written by Anthony Walsh and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2010-12-09 with total page 649 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique text/reader that takes a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to the study of criminology Providing an affordable alternative to the standard textbook, this new edition of the authors' popular text/reader provides instructors and students the best of both worlds – authored text with carefully selected accompanying readings. Now thoroughly updated with new articles, new content, and new statistics, tables, and figures, this Second Edition provides an interdisciplinary perspective on crime and criminality that incorporates the latest theories, concepts, and research from sociology, psychology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and the neurosciences. The new edition is divided into 15 sections that mirror chapters in a typical criminology textbook. New to This Edition: A new Section 11 on Mass Murder and Terrorism makes coverage of these high-interest topics even more accessible. Section 10 now focuses only on murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and domestic violence, making it easier for students to absorb the material. New articles appear in the structural theories section, the sections devoted to violent crime, and throughout the text/reader as needed. The authors now more closely link sections on types of crime to sections on theory to give readers a more cohesive understanding of the connections between the two. Contemporary criminologists' favored theories (drawn from a survey of 770 criminologists) now appear in a table to give readers insight into the professional opinion today on criminological theories. Features: Each Section has a 15-page introduction (a "mini-chapter") that contains vignettes, photos, tables and graphs, end-of-chapter questions, and Web exercises, followed by three to four supporting readings. Theory Section introductions contain a unique table that compares and contrasts the theories presented, while theory concluding sub-sections focus on policy and crime prevention. A "How to Read a Research Article" guide (which appears prior to the first reading) illustrates key aspects of a research article. The book's readings are drawn from carefully selected, edited journal articles appropriate for an undergraduate audience.
Download or read book Crime and the American Dream written by Steven F. Messner and published by Cengage Learning. This book was released on 2012-06-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authored by Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld, both highly respected scholars and researchers, CRIME AND THE AMERICAN DREAM, 5th Edition is the seminal work in a major segment of criminological theory. The foundation of the book is institutional anomie theory (an offshoot of Mertonian anomie theory), which the authors posit helps to explain why America's over-emphasis on the pursuit of materialistic gain contributes to the country's high rate of violent crime. Featuring a very clear and accessible writing style, this is a theory book that students will actually understand. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.
Download or read book Second Rate Nation written by Sam D. Sieber and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A scathing indictment of America's failure to keep up with other advanced nations and to achieve its own most cherished goals. The chapters of the book focus on: the media, the economy and corporations, foreign assistance and military affairs, health and health care, education, crime and punishment, the environment, inequality, and more. This is the one book to read this year about current events and the United States' many recent failures, which have demoted them to the status of a second-rate nation. The book will be useful for policymakers, journalists, teachers, students, activists and public speakers, and anyone with an interest in the U.S. today. Drawing on copious international and domestic evidence, the author shows that America lags significantly behind other advanced countries in such domains as health care, education, crime, civil liberties, racial and ethnic equality, environmental protection, foreign relations, and key features of the economy, including persistent poverty. The gap extends even to some surprising areas: press freedom and democratic representation. Sieber examines the questions of how and why the peculiar gulf between America's extraordinary self-esteem and the true state of affairs has evolved. He is concerned with understanding how the nation's idealized self-image is sustained in spite of overwhelming evidence of impairment in almost every important domain. In an election year the book is a valuable resource for assessing the challenges the U.S. faces. Apart from the author's powerful thesis, the book is a rich compendium of up-to-date statistical data on a variety of issues, presented without either technical obfuscation or oversimplification. It should therefore be useful to policymakers, journalists, commentators, teachers, students, activists, public speakers, and anyone wishing to know more about the true state of affairs in the U.S. today.
Download or read book Crime and the Chinese Dream written by Edited by Børge Bakken and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-11 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although official propaganda emphasizes the Chinese Dream as the dream of all Chinese, the opportunities of achieving the prosperity by legal means are distributed unequally. Crime and the Chinese Dream reveals how people on the margins of Chinese society find their way to the Chinese Dream through illegal or deviant behaviours. The case studies in this book include corrupt doctors in public hospitals in Beijing, fraudsters in a village called ‘cake uncles’, illegal motorcycle taxi drivers in Guangzhou, drug users being ‘re-educated’ in detention centres, and internet addicts who are treated as criminals by the system. Despite the patriotic and collectivistic tint of the official dream metaphor, the contributors to this volume show that the Chinese Dream is essentially a state capitalist dream, which is embedded within the problems and opportunities of capitalism, as well as a dream of control. ‘An original and important contribution to comparative criminology, international studies, and crime and justice research in China, this book highlights the ironies present in the American Dream that exist in the Chinese Dream as well. It contains diverse research topics that separate ideology from reality, and Bakken’s excellent introduction frames them in the literatures on social problems and social inequality.’ —Henry N. Pontell, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York ‘This is an outstanding collection of essays which importantly enlarges the terms of debate on crime in China. It reveals how China is complex, not only because of its internal social and economic diversity, but also because of integration into global capitalism, with all its inherent inequalities and commodification.’ —Bill Hebenton, Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Manchester
Download or read book The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America written by Wilbur R. Miller and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2012-07-20 with total page 2657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Several encyclopedias overview the contemporary system of criminal justice in America, but full understanding of current social problems and contemporary strategies to deal with them can come only with clear appreciation of the historical underpinnings of those problems. Thus, this five-volume work surveys the history and philosophy of crime, punishment, and criminal justice institutions in America from colonial times to the present. It covers the whole of the criminal justice system, from crimes, law enforcement and policing, to courts, corrections and human services. Among other things, this encyclopedia: explicates philosophical foundations underpinning our system of justice; charts changing patterns in criminal activity and subsequent effects on legal responses; identifies major periods in the development of our system of criminal justice; and explores in the first four volumes - supplemented by a fifth volume containing annotated primary documents - evolving debates and conflicts on how best to address issues of crime and punishment. Its signed entries in the first four volumes--supplemented by a fifth volume containing annotated primary documents--provide the historical context for students to better understand contemporary criminological debates and the contemporary shape of the U.S. system of law and justice.
Download or read book Locking Up Our Own written by James Forman, Jr. and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, America’s criminal justice system has become the subject of an increasingly urgent debate. Critics have assailed the rise of mass incarceration, emphasizing its disproportionate impact on people of color. As James Forman, Jr., points out, however, the war on crime that began in the 1970s was supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers. In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand why. Forman shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness—and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods. A former D.C. public defender, Forman tells riveting stories of politicians, community activists, police officers, defendants, and crime victims. He writes with compassion about individuals trapped in terrible dilemmas—from the men and women he represented in court to officials struggling to respond to a public safety emergency. Locking Up Our Own enriches our understanding of why our society became so punitive and offers important lessons to anyone concerned about the future of race and the criminal justice system in this country.
Download or read book American Dream written by Jason DeParle and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-08-30 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this definitive work, two-time Pulitzer finalist Jason DeParle, author of A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves, cuts between the mean streets of Milwaukee and the corridors of Washington to produce a masterpiece of literary journalism. At the heart of the story are three cousins whose different lives follow similar trajectories. Leaving welfare, Angie puts her heart in her work. Jewell bets on an imprisoned man. Opal guards a tragic secret that threatens her kids and her life. DeParle traces their family history back six generations to slavery and weaves poor people, politicians, reformers, and rogues into a spellbinding epic. With a vivid sense of humanity, DeParle demonstrates that although we live in a country where anyone can make it, generation after generation some families don’t. To read American Dream is to understand why.
Download or read book An American Dream written by Norman Mailer and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this wild battering ram of a novel, which was originally published to vast controversy in 1965, Norman Mailer creates a character who might be a fictional precursor of the philosopher-killer he would later profile in The Executioner’s Song. As Stephen Rojack, a decorated war hero and former congressman who murders his wife in a fashionable New York City high-rise, runs amok through the city in which he was once a privileged citizen, Mailer peels away the layers of our social norms to reveal a world of pure appetite and relentless cruelty. One part Nietzsche, one part de Sade, and one part Charlie Parker, An American Dream grabs the reader by the throat and refuses to let go. Praise for An American Dream “Perhaps the only serious New York novel since The Great Gatsby.”—Joan Didion, National Review “A devil’s encyclopedia of our secret visions and desires . . . the expression of a devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “A work of fierce concentration . . . perfectly, and often brilliantly, realistic [with] a pattern of remarkable imaginative coherence and intensity.”—Harper’s “At once violent, educated, and cool . . . This is our history as Hawthorne might have written it.”—Commentary Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post
Download or read book The Cato Papers on Public Policy written by Jeffrey A. Miron and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2011 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inaugural issue of Cato Papers on Public Policy—a new annual volume of articles on significant economic and public policy issues—provides in-depth, imaginative new research on key economic and public policy matters. This research is specifically focused on filling a gap in the vast range of work that currently addresses the pros and cons of government policies. The Cato Papers on Public Policy evaluates economic and social policies using the techniques of modern economics and real-world experience. As a result, the articles are firmly focused on what policies are beneficial for the economy and society, and illuminate each subject's problems, challenges, impact, and solutions. The articles are written by leading national experts and are edited by Jeffrey A. Miron, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University.
Download or read book Harsh Justice written by James Q. Whitman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-14 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Criminal punishment in America is harsh and degrading--more so than anywhere else in the liberal west. Executions and long prison terms are commonplace in America. Countries like France and Germany, by contrast, are systematically mild. European offenders are rarely sent to prison, and when they are, they serve far shorter terms than their American counterparts. Why is America so comparatively harsh? In this novel work of comparative legal history, James Whitman argues that the answer lies in America's triumphant embrace of a non-hierarchical social system and distrust of state power which have contributed to a law of punishment that is more willing to degrade offenders.
Download or read book Punishment Without Crime written by Alexandra Natapoff and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revelatory account of the misdemeanor machine that unjustly brands millions of Americans as criminals. Punishment Without Crime offers an urgent new interpretation of inequality and injustice in America by examining the paradigmatic American offense: the lowly misdemeanor. Based on extensive original research, legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff reveals the inner workings of a massive petty offense system that produces over 13 million cases each year. People arrested for minor crimes are swept through courts where defendants often lack lawyers, judges process cases in mere minutes, and nearly everyone pleads guilty. This misdemeanor machine starts punishing people long before they are convicted; it punishes the innocent; and it punishes conduct that never should have been a crime. As a result, vast numbers of Americans -- most of them poor and people of color -- are stigmatized as criminals, impoverished through fines and fees, and stripped of drivers' licenses, jobs, and housing. For too long, misdemeanors have been ignored. But they are crucial to understanding our punitive criminal system and our widening economic and racial divides. A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018
Download or read book Punishment in Popular Culture written by Austin Sarat and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-06-05 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Resource added for the Criminal Justice – Law Enforcement 105046 and Professional Studies 105045 programs.
Download or read book Unusually Cruel written by Marc Morjé Howard and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States incarcerates far more people than any other country in the world, at rates nearly ten times higher than other liberal democracies. Indeed, while the U.S. is home to 5 percent of the world's population, it contains nearly 25 percent of its prisoners. But the extent of American cruelty goes beyond simply locking people up. At every stage of the criminal justice process - plea bargaining, sentencing, prison conditions, rehabilitation, parole, and societal reentry - the U.S. is harsher and more punitive than other comparable countries. In Unusually Cruel, Marc Morjé Howard argues that the American criminal justice and prison systems are exceptional - in a truly shameful way. Although other scholars have focused on the internal dynamics that have produced this massive carceral system, Howard provides the first sustained comparative analysis that shows just how far the U.S. lies outside the norm of established democracies. And, by highlighting how other countries successfully apply less punitive and more productive policies, he provides plausible solutions to addressing America's criminal justice quagmire.
Download or read book The SAGE Handbook of Punishment and Society written by Jonathan Simon and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012-09-18 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The project of interpreting contemporary forms of punishment means exploring the social, political, economic, and historical conditions in the society in which those forms arise. The SAGE Handbook of Punishment and Society draws together this disparate and expansive field of punishment and society into one compelling new volume. Headed by two of the leading scholars in the field, Jonathan Simon and Richard Sparks have crafted a comprehensive and definitive resource that illuminates some of the key themes in this complex area - from historical and prospective issues to penal trends and related contributions through theory, literature and philosophy. Incorporating a stellar and international line-up of contributors the book addresses issues such as: capital punishment, the civilising process, gender, diversity, inequality, power, human rights and neoliberalism. This engaging, vibrantly written collection will be captivating reading for academics and researchers in criminology, penology, criminal justice, sociology, cultural studies, philosophy and politics.
