AJ 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Substance Abuse, Endangerment
Document Summary
The rich get richer & the poor get prison. We can make more sense of the criminal justice system & its policies by assuming that its goal is to ??? crime rates than reduce it. Pyrrhic victory: a victory purchased at such a cost it amounts to defeat. The criminal justice system yields such benefits to these in position of power that it amounts to a victory for them and a defeat for everyone else. Declining crime rates (low but still high: the drop in crime rates is between explained by noncriminal justice factors, decline in crack usage, removal of leas from the environment. We"re too soft: u. s. incarnation rates & violence are higher than comparable countries, u. s. is only western industrial nation with death penalty. Crime rates have grown faster than either the absolute number of ??? people or their percentage of the population. Poverty commits a need to commit crime. Guns don"t kill people, people kill people.