The Politics of Injustice: Crime and Punishment in America - Softcover

The U.S. crime rate has dropped steadily for more than a decade, yet the rate of incarceration continues to skyrocket. Today, more than 2 million Americans are locked in prisons and jails with devastating consequences for poor families and communities, overcrowded institutions and overburdened taxpayers. How did the U.S. become the world's leader in incarceration? Why have the numbers of women, juveniles, and people of color increased especially rapidly among the imprisoned?

Katherine Beckett, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and in the Law, Societies and Justice Program at the University of Washington in Seattle. She teaches courses on law, culture, drugs, social control, and terrorism. She is the author of Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics (1997), as well as numerous articles and chapters, including "How Unregulated Is the U.S. Labor Market? The Dynamics of Jobs and Jails, 1980-1995," with Bruce Western (American Journal of Sociology, 1999).

Theodore Sasson, Ph.D., is Chair and Associate Professor of Sociology, Middlebury College, where he teaches courses in criminology, political sociology, social theory, and media studies. He has also taught sociology and criminology at Northeastern University, Boston College, and the University of Southern Maine. He is the author of Crime Talk: How Citizens Construct a Social Problem (1995), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters.