NCJ Number
100456
Date Published
1985
Length
211 pages
Annotation
This book identifies and challenges popular American myths about crime and crime control that have fueled the fear of crime and punitive crime control policies. Informal social controls are viewed as the most promising way to reduce crime.
Abstract
The myths that crime is quantitatively and qualitatively worse than it has ever been and that the chances of serious criminal victimization are extremely high are challenged by a historical review of crime patterns in America. Crime-reporting methods are also critiqued. The media's overdramatization of vicious, bizarre crimes and the criminal justice system's interest in magnifying the need for its services are cited as factors in the public's unwarranted fear of crime. Another myth defused is that the criminal justice system's increasingly punitive response to crime will reduce it. Prison overcrowding, the curtailment of individual liberties, and the fostering of criminogenic prison environments are identified as consequences of the punitive crime control policy. The author argues that crime cannot be effectively controlled by formal, punitive law enforcement mechanisms. The restructuring of community social institutions that can exercise informal social control is believed to be a more promising approach to crime control. A bibliographic essay cites 18 works related to the topics discussed. Chapter notes and a subject index.