Mass Incarceration Nation
How the United States Became Addicted to Prisons and Jails and How It Can Recover

A new account of the rise, persistence, and potential fall of mass incarceration – from a criminal justice insider.

Jeffrey Bellin (Author)

9781009267557, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 November 2022

220 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 1.3 cm, 0.37 kg

'Bellin provides the definitive account for why the United States has such a high incarceration rate, and he forcefully argues how we can fix our mass incarceration problem.' Shon Hopwood, Associate Professor, Georgetown Law School Author of Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption

The United States imprisons a higher proportion of its population than any other nation. Mass Incarceration Nation offers a novel, in-the-trenches perspective to explain the factors – historical, political, and institutional – that led to the current system of mass imprisonment. The book examines the causes and impacts of mass incarceration on both the political and criminal justice systems. With accessible language and straightforward statistical analysis, former prosecutor turned law professor Jeffrey Bellin provides a formula for reform to return to the low incarceration rates that characterized the United States prior to the 1970s.

Introduction
Part I. What is Mass Incarceration?: 1. Definition
2. The deprivation of incarceration
3. Where is mass incarceration?
4. Distinguishing the criminal justice and criminal legal systems
Part II. The Building Blocks of Mass Incarceration: 5. A crime surge
6. Repeating patterns: crime, outrage, and harsher laws
7. Legislating more punishment and less rehabilitation
8. The futility of fighting crime with criminal law
9. The role of race
Part III. The Mechanics of Mass Incarceration: 10. More police, different arrests
11. Prosecutors turning arrests into convictions
12. Judges turning convictions into incarceration
13. Judicial interpretation
14. Punishing repeat offenses
15. The parole and probation to prison pipeline
16. Disappearing pardons
17. The mindlessness of jail
Part IV. The Road to Recovery: 18. What success looks like
19. (Mostly) abolish the feds
20. Less crime part 1: changing the rules
21. Less crime part 2: decreased offending
22. Reducing admissions and shortening stays
Conclusion
Index.

Subject Areas: Criminal justice law [LNFB], Prisons [JKVP1], True stories [BT]