The Tough-On-Crime Myth: Real Solutions to Cut Crime

A former reporter in both the print and electronic media and now a prominent defense attorney, Elikann brings the best of both worlds to this exhaustive study of America's losing wars against crime in general and drugs in particular. Elikann places much of the blame for the fact that there has been a 500% increase in violent crime since 1960 on legislators who boast that they are tough on crime. He contends that three-strikes-you're-out sentencing guidelines are foolish, that the effect of mandated minimum terms has been to fill prisons with those convicted of minor drug offenses so there is no room for truly violent criminals and that it is irresponsible to spend vast sums on building prisons while earmarking too little to rehabilitate the inmates. Elikann is outraged that there are now more than 200 million guns in the U.S., and he argues that the War on Drugs has been and is still a joke that has failed utterly, despite the billions spent to win it. Filled with compelling statistics and revealing glimpses into the lives and minds of convicts and ex-convicts, Elikann's well-argued, passionate book contends that those who favor certain anticrime nostrums are actually, if unwittingly, encouraging crime's continuation and probably its growth. (Oct.)