More than any other developed country in the world, the United States has relied on the jails and prisons as their (sorry, I can’t say our…) first defense against crime, yet they still maintain the developed world’s worst level of violence. That is a fact that nobody disagrees. The problem surges when a policy must be made towards that. Both, Clinton and Dole, for instance, supported the extension of the death penalty, along with a vague call for victim rights, boot camps and school uniforms. Yet none of these has ever been shown to make a difference in the rate of crime. That is what activated the sociologist-criminologist Elliot Currie to publish this current book, as several other in the past, "to help right the balance, to separate truth from myth" in his on words.

Crime and Punishment in America is a very easy publication to read. Divided in 5 chapters, he makes use of an abundance and necessary statistics, as an antidote to myths, in the first two chapters. The following 3^rd, he shows that some prevention programs aimed to the younger in society can be much more effective in reducing crime than the further increases in incarceration. Next, in the 4^th, Currie shows the high correlation among violence to the persistence of extremes of poverty and inequality, to finally outline some practical initiatives. In the last chapter, he fiercely argues against simply "reacting to crime" instead of preventing the harm, concluding with suggestions about the dimensions and significance of the choices.

The accredited criminologist points out how in 1971 there were fewer than 200,000 inmates in our state and federal prisons. By the end of 1996 Americans were approaching 1.2 million. The prison population, in short, has nearly sextupled in the course of twenty-five years. (Adding in local jails brings the total to nearly 1.7 million.) In other words, the rise has been dramatic, going from a low of 93 the number of inmates in state and federal prisons per 100,000 population (in 1972) to a high 427 per 100,000 in 1996. To understand the implications of these numbers in the case of Texas, as an illustration, just the ‘increase’ in the number of from 1991 to 1996 alone--about 80,000--is far larger than the total prison population of France or the United Kingdom. This expansion in just 5 years is roughly equal to the total prison population of Germany, a nation of over 80 million people (Texas has about 18 million.) In addition, are nations like Norway, which remain honestly reluctant to impose any prison time, especially for less serious offenses and at the high end, there is the state of Texas, which ranked between the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria in a study.

The measurements were even of greater impact on minorities such as the Afro-American. By the mid-1990s roughly one in three young black men were under the "supervision" of the criminal-justice system. The figure was two out of five in California, and over half in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. In California today, four times as many black men are "enrolled" in state prison as are enrolled in public colleges and universities. Nationally, there are twice as many black men in state and federal prison today as there were men of all races twenty years ago. Other great asymmetry is shown when between 1985 and 1995, the number of black state prison inmates sentenced for drug offenses rose by more than 700 percent. Also, by the early 1990s, 29 percent of black men could expect to spend some time in a state or federal prison during their lifetime. Yet young black men in United States were more than one hundred times as likely to die by violence as young men in Britain or France.

On the other hand, women, this minority of a majority, went from 5,600 in state and federal prisons across the United States to nearly 75,000 in just 25 years. And is combined being black and woman the result is a prison incarceration rate today exceeds what for white men was in 1980.

In 1995, the most recent year Currie could use for comparative purposes, the overall incarceration rate for the United States was 600 per 100,000 population, including local jails, but not juvenile institutions. Around the world, the only country with a higher rate was Russia, at 690 per 100,000, followed by the as the segregated founded South Africa (368). But most industrial democracies aggregate far below Americans, at around 55 to 120 per 100,000, with a notably low 36/100,000 rate in Japan.

It will be wrong to assume that these numbers only reflect that, even if an enormously high percentage of criminals are taken from the streets, at least we will be living in a safer situation. The reality is that more or less in all nation-states the time of murderers’ imprisons are not so different from one another. Therefore, in the United States, sentences tend to be longer for all but the most serious offenses, notably homicide. But there is likely to be more variation in the way countries treat property and drug crimes. It’s there that Elliot Currie disagrees with the popular "three strikes and you are out" policy, a mandatory sentence of twenty-five years to life. A law where any felony that triggered it can bring consequences like when in California’s prison system more persons fell under this law for simple marijuana possession than for murder, rape and kidnapping combined. Not many violent offenders from California fell under it mainly because such offenders were already being sentenced to tough terms before the controversial law.

Criminologists have long distinguished several ways in which putting people in prison might reduce the crime rate. One is "deterrence"--meaning that people who are sent to prison may be less inclined to commit crimes when they get out because they don't want to go back and/or that potential offenders will be inhibited by the threat of being put behind bars. Another is "rehabilitation": if is provided schooling, job training, drug treatment, or other services in prison, offenders may be better able to avoid returning to crime when released. Then there is the simplest mechanism, "incapacitation," which means that as long as offenders are behind bars they cannot commit crimes--at least, not against people on the outside (though they can still commit them against one another and against prison personnel). This last one is the one with most of the sympathy by press and the republicans.

Though most criminologists would probably agree that imprisonment has some deterrent effect, its magnitude has proved highly ineffective. During the 1970s and 1980s, a number of studies attempted to calculate the potential incapacitation effect of large increases in imprisonment. The results were not encouraging. Doubling the prison population might reduce serious reported crimes by 10 percent, somewhat more in the case of burglaries and robberies, less for homicides and rapes And what is startlingly clear today is that if anything the research erred on the optimistic side. The incarceration rate has risen much more than anyone imagined. But there has been no overall decrease in serious criminal violence. That’s because several factors are also in the game; 1) For some offenses, especially murder, that first serious crime may be the only one that an offender is likely to commit, hence the incapacitation effect in such cases is essentially zero. 2) Another limitation of incapacitation is the "replacement effect"--putting a drug dealer or gang leader in prison may simply open up a position for someone else in an ongoing enterprise, but is also important in the case of much juvenile crime, which often takes place in groups. Putting one member of a gang behind bars may have little impact, if any, on the gang's overall rate of crime, since some body else will take his/her role.

Another constituent is poverty. While Americans were busily filling the prisons to the tops with young and poor men, they were simultaneously contributing to the fastest rise in income inequality in recent history. They were tolerating the descent of several million Americans, most of them children, into poverty (an American child under 18 is half as likely to be poor now as he/she would 20 years earlier.) Quotes, Currie as well, the "hypermaterialist" culture in urban neighborhoods, a culture immersed by the massive growth of consumer advertising and marketing and celebrated on television that contributes to this inner-cities’ cycle of crimes…

Some explanations that the distinguished criminologist gives to all this fervor for increases of inmates under penitentiaries are met in the sociological Functionalist perspective. Prison is being used as a default "solution" to many American social problems, it est., it is being used as mental health institutions and unemployment ‘solutions’. If we take the case of Texas, there are 120,000 men in prison in 1995 and 300,000 officially unemployed. Adding the imprisoned to the jobless count raises the state's male unemployment rate by well over a third, from 5.6 to 7.8. And then, in California, it is estimated that somewhere between 8 and 20% of incarcerated are seriously mentally ill.

Part of the book, Mr. Currie dedicated it to advice how the media is overwhelming malpractice of statistics on the news where people take misunderstandings of the reality. One case, for instance, it has been publish that a judges sentences rapist for two months or a murder less than two years. The "falsehoods" are in how they count criminals that or either has no been proved that they did anything against the low or even, those that never had entered in the legal system. He compared this falsehoods as if a 20 feet depth river that floods into hundreds of squared miles, and the media reports that the average of the water has accordingly fallen considerably--small comfort to those whose homes are now underwater…

The biggest correlation that the writer found was Crime-Poverty. Media attention has recently highlighted the falling rate of crime for the past four years. As Currie demonstrates, this decline has come during a period of unusually low unemployment and relative prosperity. With the same explanation he justifies why the National crime peak was in the economical crises of 1991.

Toward prevention Elliot Currie give some practicable ideas: After some studies that shows the high correlation among abused children an violence that will generate it. Currie also, shows there is good evidence that programs based on home visiting by skilled outsiders can reduce such abuses. Programs like the Elmira, which had exhibit eminent success on high risk white women where those participants in posteriors screens had been reported that only 4% used violence in contrast with the 19% of the control group. A cognitive study applied to problematic children in Ypsilanti (Michigan) had also reported equally success on prevention of violence. Success was also achieved in adolescents (that had become or not delinquent already) in other researches as well. The Missouri program proved that even with already young criminal eminent successfulness are achieve after an agenda called ‘multi systemic therapy' (MST), which takes into account the juvenile's relationships with family, peers and school, as well as the community and other wider systems, such as the job market. Those who had received MST had a re-arrest rate of 22 percent over the four years following therapy, as against 70 percent of the control group,

As another alternative Elliot Currie cites a Social Action. On it, he try to find the social basics for violence. After a exhaustive deliberation of contrasting number with crimes in other countries an several researches, he claims to had founded that is the economic condition (deprivation and inequality) of children as being one of the main responsible. In Britain and Ireland, with national health care system raises those poor conditions to a higher level. Then, the gap among social class seems to be relevant as well. Finally, he confronts the said such "we has spent trillions of dollars on antipoverty". For that it is remarked how welfare spending per child in poverty dropped by a third between 1979 and 1993, reflecting while the number of poor children rose, the spending remained. USA spends around 4 % in all kind of welfare. That is half of Britain, a not example of excellence either! Considering some of the scientific findings as 1) extreme deprivation inhibits children’s’ I.Q. 2) extreme deprivation breeds violence 3) extreme poverty undermine parents’ ability to raise children effectively and caringly. And 4) poverty breeds crime by undermining parents’ ability to monitor and supervise children. No surprisingly, Currie concludes that it is by tackling poverty, by reforming wages, creating work and making crucial services universal (a comprehensive social security system, child-care,…), that the USA will make some progress in work on the crime problem.

Elliot Currie saved the last chapter to propose alternatives to de Justice system. The author claims for an effective drug treatment for prisoners, since as many as 50-60% (70% in California) of state prison inmates have a drug problem sufficiently severe. Next, it is mentioned the Violent Juvenile Offender program (VJO) initiated in 1980, was designed to strength the bonds among the young criminal and the social institutions. After it operated mainly in Detroit and Memphis, the project got much of the success like the multi systematic therapies mentioned before. But, despite the evidence of effectiveness only rarely the project was put into practice. Separate case is if the justice system is not being proportionate with its sentences. Despite, the usual press avoiding such questions the fact is that many has problems (drugs, economical..) that brought them there repeated and are being sentenced extremely long sentences… But, since we didn’t ask ourselves this kind of questions, hardly can we come up with any answers! As a third policy he calls for a shift on criminal justice toward community-oriented policing strategies. Examples of these policies are like creating after-school programs (jobs, sports…) by the police department or involve that department closer with the community (especially the young) in order to prevent violence before it happens…and so on.

Concluding, Currie certainly assumes that "rational argument based on scientific knowledge – i.e. reason and facts – can change social policy". "The real debate is not about being ‘tough’ or ‘soft’ on violent crime. It is about what works and what don’t" assures the specialist. He described a number of social programs that have indeed dramatically reduced rates of crime or recidivism, even among groups of people generally considered beyond hope. Examples he gives range from preschool home visitation targeting child abuse through enriched schools for high-risk teenagers to successful community programs for youths who already have multiple arrests. The modest costs of these programs, together with their tangible benefits, offer to those interested, a real and practical reality of what we should (and shouldn’t) do to improve our general welfare.

There were, at least, two things clear for me before I’d read this book:

1. The higher the rates of incarceration, the lesser of freedom.
2. There is about 6 industrial deaths caused by corporate violation of safety for each homicide committed by a poor person.

In the following, in change, I came up with a more insight about criminology. I had a certain idea that something here was terrible wrong but I never had been able to identify what. However, after I’d finished Crime and Punishment in America, not only I had submerged in those waters but also I ‘d learned some practicable ideas that could be applied:

Short of major wars, mass incarceration has been the most thoroughly implemented government social program of our time. No matter how we approach the question, the United States does turn out to be relatively punitive in its treatment of offenders, and very much so for less serious crimes. (We should not forget that USA is the only industrialized nation that no only allows capital punishment but also where it’s too frequently used.) An incarceration rate that is many times higher than any other comparable country is a signal that something is seriously wrong. Then, when we see that those that had felt in the justice arms remains a higher time as well, the issue becomes brighter. What are the economical opportunity costs of these policies? Or even worse, aren’t Americans over abusing their legal system? And as with other government programs, it is reasonable to ask, what have we gotten in return?

On one hand, the actual policies severely start costing Americans too much level of safety. On the another hand, like in California, where one of each in six state employees is working in the prison system, it is costing the society too many schools, roads and too many pensions. In a future economical crises, with a society that believes that the actual system is working, even with groups asking to double the rates, the numbers just would jump out of the table hitting even the more basic legal systems of this country. No to mention its security!

Consequently, my worry comes also on to, which kind of deviancies are Americans punishing? Deviance is generally defined as any act that violates a social norm. Since there is no much higher rates of incarceration for violent and dangerous criminals, does it mean that the federal and state prison systems are incarcerating simple marijuana possessors for terribly long terms? What is their improvement after all those years in prison? And, aren’t too many people with mental problems falling into that "hole" as well? Or even worse, are we prudently screening equally those unpopular individuals from downtowns as those from suburbs? Or are Americans, in change, making policies to ‘clean’ the downtowns of America of the annual productions of poverty?

Now, the USA is in a historical time to make a change. Changes that must start by flooding the media with the reality of the punishment by specialists like sociologists, criminologists and economists or even by political scientifics. Americans are in an economical prosperous period that can not be wasted in not putting in practice some of the new methods. New methods that, on one hand, had been more than scientifically tested and in the another hand, are in more resemblance with the end of this century rather than concepts more proper of other centuries. A necessary change for our legal systems’ health, our economy and… consequently, our freedom.

Elliott Currie, is one of the better known of American sociologist-criminologists in the United States, as well as an international authority on crime and punishment. Currie is the author of the prize-winning Confronting Crime and Reckoning. He also is the co-author of a classic text Crisis in American Institutions. After he has taught criminology at Yale University he has been a consultant to a wide range of organizations such as the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

He currently is the vice-chair of the Eisenhower Foundation and professor in the Legal Studies Program of the University of California at Berkeley.

Currie is frequently labeled as a left of center on the economical spectrum.