cover image Let's Take Back Our Streets!

Let's Take Back Our Streets!

Reuben Greenberg. McGraw-Hill/Contemporary, $16.95 (225pp) ISBN 978-0-8092-4367-9

During Greenberg's tenure as chief of police of Charleston, S.C., crime has been reduced so sharply that residents jokingly call their city Saintsville. In this rousing call to action against crime, written with a consulting editor of Guideposts , the chief tells what moves he has made to take back the streets in his adopted city from criminals and what he thinks other law officers can do to accomplish the same. Greenberg disputes the contention that law-breakers are victims of circumstance; they commit crimes by choice, he argues, and ought to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. He also stresses that the function of punishment is, indeed, to punish. This is a book of tough talk from a police chief who firmly believes that we are all accountable for our actions and urges both police and citizens not to surrender to hopelessness about crime. (Jan.)