Imprisonment in America

ISBN: 9780226752792

定价: 51.00

内容简介

Preface
\"Don t look back???\" Satchel Paige advised??? \"something might be
gaining on you.\" Yet??? of necessity??? this book regards the future by
looking over its shoulder at the past. In any consideration of the social
institution of imprisonment--especially in any attempt to change
it--the weight of history must be placed in the balance. The recent
excellent works of David Rothman??? Michel Foucault??? and Michael
Ignatieff have confirmed the importance of a historical perspective on
any era s policy prescriptions.
This is??? however??? explicitly a policy book. In Chapter 5??? the
analysis of the past is allowed to inform some recommendations
which mesh liberal and conservative views. Although in some cases
we have been driven back to original sources??? this is not a work of
primary social history in which lessons are inferred from a mass of
detail. Ours is an idiosyncratic view of the constraints imposed by
traditions on future choices??? and its policy lessons are not shared by
many of the historians on whose work we have tried to build.
The genesis of the book may help to explain another of its features.
In 1977--80??? the first author participated in a major study (commis-
sioned by the U.S. Department of Justice) of the American correc-
tional system. The central task was to advise the Congress??? through
the agency??? of the present and future needs of the country s prisons
and jails. The legislators??? it seems??? believed initially that the long-
term future of the system was something that could be forecasted or
projected with confidence. On the surface??? this may seem a sensible
goal. Yet as some of the researchers argued at the time and as this
book maintains??? this is not the way to approach the problem. To
convert a policy analysis into a mechanical forecasting exercise is not
only impossible in any respectable professional way??? it is potentially
dangerous.
Some of the dangers are addressed below??? and others are examined
by Kenneth Carlson in the project s report??? American Prisons and
Jails. Here we simply note that a great deal of correctional policy is
currently made by this misguided reliance on forecasting the demand
of an inexorable prison pol~ulation and meeting it with a supply of
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