Assignment task:
Pratt, T. (2019). Addicted to incarceration: Correctional policy and the politics of misinformation in the United States. Sage. 21 people listen to-can instead take the place of solid scientific evidence (Sinderbrand, 2017). So once again, corrections policy can be co-opted by policy makers. Summary The broad takeaway from this chapter is that we arrived at our current state of incarceration as the result of decades' worth of changes in how we think about the causes of crime, and how those ideas became translated into political decisions. And a problem that has gone largely overlooked by criminologists thus far is the extent to which the stubbornly persistent size of our correctional system continues to be aided by policy makers' use of faulty information about (1) crime, (2) the desires of the American public, and (3) the efficacy of incarceration as a crime control strategy. The three chapters in Part II (The Sources and Dimensions of Misinformation) deal directly with these issues. Although certainly a lofty goal, my hope is that exposing the misinformation perpetuated by the defenders of the second wave of the get tough movement will open the door to more honest public debate concerning the harmful consequences (both intended and unintended) of the American state of imprisonment, and that it may boost the political attractiveness of alternative strategies that may be implemented to help us shake the habit of relying so heavily on the quick fix of incarceration.