Do prisons make us safer?; the benefits and costs of the prison boom.

9780871548603

Do prisons make us safer?; the benefits and costs of the prison boom.

Ed. by Steven Raphael and Michael A. Stoll.

Russell Sage Foundation

2009

354 pages

$39.95

Hardcover

HV9469

Nine chapters presented by Raphael (public policy, U. of California at Berkeley) and Stoll (public policy, U. of California at Los Angeles), combining both empirical research and reviews of the literature, address the questions of the causes of US prison incarceration rates over the past three decades, the costs and benefits of the increase, and the socially optimal incarceration rate. In determining causes, contributors point to policy, particularly the drug war and its role in making criminal justice more punitive. In measuring benefits, contributors focus on the standard topics of deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation, but when discussing costs they focus on those factors that have received less attention, including whether prisons have criminogenic effects on inmates, the extent of the association between parental incarceration and childhood outcomes, impacts on state budgets, and impacts of imprisonment on employment.

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