Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America - Softcover

Tonry, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195104692 ISBN 13: 9780195104691

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1996

Synopsis

Despite the perennial claims of politicians that our courts are coddling hardened criminals, the fact is that America already sends a higher proportion of its citizens to prison--and for longer terms--than any other western nation. To quote the Canadian House of Commons's Committee on Justice, "If locking up those who violate the law contributed to safer societies, then the United States should be the safest country in the world." Yet despite well-documented and mounting evidence that increased penalties alone cannot reduce crime, the Reagan and Bush administrations repeatedly lobbied for tougher mandatory sentences and more prisons. Although black crime rates have been stable for twenty years, the number and percentages of blacks in jail and prison have skyrocketed since Ronald Reagan took office. The trend continues with President Clinton, who recently called for "three strikes you're out" legislation dictating mandatory life sentences for third felony convictions.
In Malign Neglect, Michael Tonry addresses these paradoxes with passion and lucidity. Drawing on a vast compendium of the latest statistical, legal and social science research, he takes on the explosive issues of race, crime and punishment. As unconventional as he is committed, Tonry confronts uncomfortable truths head-on. On the one hand, he is outraged by politicians' talk of Willy Horton and Welfare Queens. The texts may be crime and welfare, Tonry writes, but the subtext is race. While he recognizes that the disadvantaged have no license to attack, rape or steal, and that the absolution of disadvantaged offenders would require a cynical acceptance of the suffering of victims, he argues powerfully that crime control policies can be recast so that, without diminishing public safety, they do less harm to disadvantaged black Americans. Tonry presents devastating evidence that our current policies are decimating black communities, and impeding the movement of disadvantaged black Americans into the social and economic mainstream of modern America.
A blistering attack on worn-out misconceptions about race, poverty, crime and punishment and a fearless prescription for change, Malign Neglect is an indispensable briefing paper on a topic which goes to the heart and soul of the nation.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Tonry is Sonosky Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota. He is the co-author of Between Prison and Probation, with Norval Morris, editor of the leading journal Crime and Justice--A Review of Research, and General Editor, with Morris, of the Oxford University Press series Studies in Crime and Public Policy.

From Booklist

The central question here is, why, in spite of the fact that crimes committed by African Americans have held level for the last 20 years, are African Americans incarcerated at nearly seven times the level of whites? The answer is a devastating indictment of the Reagan-Bush "repressive crime control policies," which have had the effect of targeting minorities for punishment, especially African Americans. Tonry (coauthor, Between Prison and Probation, 1991) provides detailed discussion and analysis of patterns that result when an African American is thrust into the criminal system. His most damning critique concerns the War on Drugs crusade, which, though it failed to make a noticeable dent in the drug trade, did succeed in what Tonry sees as the larger goal--increasing the number of African Americans in the prison system. Uncomfortable but necessary reading for all Americans. Brian McCombie

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0195104692
• ISBN 13: 9780195104691
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256