by Todd R. Clear
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Product Description
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 minority--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, Imprisoning Communities 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; and threatens the economic and political infrastructure of already struggling neighborhoods. Especially at risk are children who, research shows, are more likely to commit a crime if a father or brother has been to prison. Clear makes the counterintuitive point that when incarceration concentrates at high levels, crime rates will go up. Removal, in other words, has exactly the opposite of its intended effect: it destabilizes the community, thus further reducing public safety.
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, Todd Clear 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.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Highly recommended by Barnaby, 2008-12-23
Our growing reliance on incarceration in the United States helps us to avoid confronting a host of deep and stubborn problems. The problem of mass incarceration directly affects families and communities. Elliot Currie in Crime and Punishment in America argues that there are three important tasks to be undertaken in order to address mass incarceration: investing in rehabilitation, rethinking sentencing, and reducing violence in the community through more effective police strategies. On the other hand, Bruce Western in Punishment and Inequality in America urges the United States to examine the steady rise in its economic inequality and the high unemployment levels among poor urban blacks.
While Michael Jacobson in Downsizing Prisons acknowledges the work of both Currie and Western, he calls for a new type of policy reform. By relying heavily on his own experience in budgeting and managing for corrections, he calls for reforming probation and parole as the way to reversing over twenty years of prison growth. He argues that most convicted criminals in the United States are not in prisons or jails. In fact, of the 6.7 million people under criminal justice supervision in the United States in 2002, approximately 71% or 4.7 million people have been either sentenced to probation or are on parole. As greater numbers are released, almost half will wind up back in prisons within three years. This is due in part to the politics of punishment combined with the day-to-day workings of the correctional system which poses an apparently insurmountable obstacle to the task of reversing present trends. Addressing probation and parole is logical and as Jacobson points out, it costs approximately $200 per year to supervise each person on probation or parole compared to over $20,000 for prison.
This is a must read book for anyone interested in mass incarceration and its impact. Michael Jacobson in Downsizing prisons not only highlights the problems, but puts forward a solution. He has accomplished his goal of providing a guide capable of taking us "from here to there" (pg. 222). He is aware of the Realpolitik, namely, that large-scale proposals for governmental reform must be accompanied by an achievable fiscal and political strategy for any success to be realized but also that we have to be vigilant in our efforts.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 TIME TO HIT THE BRAKES IN ORDER TO BREAK THE CYCLE OF POVERTY AND CRIME, 2008-07-13
Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)
This book is but yet another siren being sounded to warn the American public to awaken from their delusional slumber. Having written a book detailing my own experiences growing up in impoverished, socially dysfunctional communities, I find the research of Professor Clear not only compelling, but reaffirming the realities tens of millions of individuals in this country face each and every day.
In fiscal 2005 Federal, State, and local governments spent an estimated $204 billion for police protection, corrections and judicial and legal activities, a 5.5% increase over the previous year. There is a vested financial interest by those who profit from maintaining the current status quo as it pertains to so called criminal justice and incarceration.
A holistic and radically different approach to dealing proactively with the conditions and elements which breed crime must be enacted. Or We the People can look forward to the Orwellian world of 1984 becoming our reality in lieu of fiction.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Mostly hogwash, 2008-06-07
While it may be fair to argue that the rate/length of incarceration in this country is higher than necessary, the rest of Clear's premise is pure ivory tower hogwash. Anyone who actually "works" in the field knows that recidivists are not unfortunate tax paying citizens scooped up by over-zealous police after their first transgression. Self-report research confirms that typical criminals commit scores of crimes before they are incarcerated. They do not work or support their multiple dependents, and are a blight on the majority of their hard-working neighbors. Need I remind the author that targeted crime enforcement is often a response to the pleas of the pro-social majority to rid their communities of anti-social predators.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A New Look at the Problem of Incarceration, 2007-11-05
"Lock `em up and throw away the key." That sums up our attitude towards crime and criminals in general. We believe that imprisonment will reduce crime in our society. Today the American society has more than two million people in prisons across the nation. Prisoner population is on the rise and we are building more and more prisons. On the other hand, however crime also is on the increase; prisons do not seem to prevent it.
Todd R. Clear, distinguished professor of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and editor of the journal 'Criminology and Public Safety' demonstrates in this book that the current policy of incarceration is not only ineffective in reducing crime, but it positively contributes to its increase in our neighborhoods. Incarceration aggrevates the very problems it is intended to solve. Our criminal justice system is backfiring. Our politicians and policy makers must take note of this eye-opening book. Well researched and beautifully written, this book provides a wealth of information and food for reflection. At the same time it is an easy read.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A Prison Employee, 2007-11-02
This book is on the money with research and experience. It is one of many that policy makers and prison administrators should read.
I have only two problems with the book. Early in the book the author sounds like a raving liberal (but he saved this by presenting unbiased evidence throughout the rest of the book). Also, in chapter 8, the author seems to overstate his position on the utility of treatment programs. He states that, "a 15-20% reduction in rearrests hardly constitutes a new penal regime." And then he states that, "Unless reentry programs are widely successful - and there is no reason to think they will be - they cannot solve the problem of mass incarceration"... this is only half of the story. For a very thorough look at programs that are successful, see "What Works in Corrections" by MacKenzie. But it is true that we won't end mass incarceration via reentry or alternatives to incarceration; both, however, are very important and should be utilized to their fullest. If for, example, the resources were allocated to all offenders and a 15% reduction in recidivism were to occur nationwide, this would mean that of the 600,000 offenders released each year, of which according to the BJS 66% will reoffend within 3 years, 59,000 offenders will be better off with treatment programs that work. That is about half the size of the California prison system or more than all of the inmates in all of New England. Clearly, understating the importance of treatment programs is not a good idea when policy makers read (or hopefully read) book such as this.
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