SOCI 3810 Lecture 12: Criminology -- (12) The American Criminal Justice System
2 May 2018
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!1
The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison Chp. 1
The American Criminal Justice System
A. “Criminal Justice” System —> the system of government that determines what acts are
criminal and responsible for apprehending, judging, sanctioning, and treating of
“criminals”
•Police
•Courts
•Corrections
•Also : lawmakers, police & probation officers, judges, lawyers, juries, prison
employees, parole boards
B. The Pyrrhic Defeat Theory
•Main argument of Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison
•Goal of American criminal justice system is not to reduce crime or to achieve justice
but “to project to the American public a credible image of the threat of crime as a
threat from the poor”
•Pyrrhic Defeat = “nothing succeeds like failure”
-maintenance vs. reduction
-concentration on poor —> more likely to be arrested, imprisoned
-benefits those in prison —> how?
-not an international phenomenon
-manifestation of this?
C. Trends in Incarceration Over Time
•700% increase in incarceration from 1970 to present
-1970 : 140,000
-1980 : 300,000
-1990 : 600,000
-2014 : 1.5 million
•the US has less than 5% of the world’s population, yet have almost 25% of the
world’s total prison population
•stats?
D. Does Incarceration Reduce Crime?
•despite recent decreases in crime, violent & property, crime is still very high in US
•Did incarceration cause this decrease? — two main points
1. Incarceration did NOT reduce crime in the US (reduced crime from 10-25%)
2. BUT it DID cost a lot of money
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The rich get richer and the poor get prison chp. The american criminal justice system: criminal justice system > the system of government that determines what acts are criminal and responsible for apprehending, judging, sanctioning, and treating of. Concentration on poor > more likely to be arrested, imprisoned. Manifestation of this: trends in incarceration over time, 700% increase in incarceration from 1970 to present. Incarceration did not reduce crime in the us (reduced crime from 10-25%: but it did cost a lot of money. !2: what did reduce crime after the early 1990s, excuses for not reducing crime, we are too soft. Crime should be reduced if we are tougher on offenders: a cost of modern life. Crime is an inescapable fact of any complex, industrialized society ( death, taxes, and crime ) Crime is too high in america to be a product of industrialization alone though: blame it on the kids!
