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Punishment and Inequality in America.(Book review)
- Article from:
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Independent Review
- Article date:
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June 22, 2008
- Author:
- Beito, David T.
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Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 2008 Independent Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Punishment and Inequality in America
By Bruce Western
New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006.
Pp. xiv, 247. $29.95 cloth.
Over the past decade or so, the rate of violent crime has reached lows unseen in the United States since the early 1960s. Between 1993 and 2001, it plummeted by nearly half, and politicians scrambled to take credit. In 2008, for example, Rudy Giuliani's Web site triumphantly proclaimed that he "put more cops on the street and more criminals in jail. He cut crime in half and reduced murders by two-thirds." In Punishment and Inequality in America, Bruce Western tells the other side of the story. As crime fell during the last two decades of ...