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Ending Mass Incarceration explores why mass incarceration is a failed public safety strategy and what should be done to bring about truly transformative change. Although policymakers on both the left and right now recognize mass incarceration as a problem rather than a solution, and many states have taken steps to reduce prison populations, the criminal legal response to crime is harsher than ever. This book identifies three key dynamics that are bolstering mass incarceration. It also identifies three broad changes that would limit the power and reach of the criminal legal system while also addressing the social problems to which it is a misguided response.

This article uses the US debate over elective Cesarean section to re-consider some of the more contentious issues raised in feminist debates about childbirth. Three waves of feminist commentary and critique in the United States are analysed in light of the ongoing debate over whether women should be able to choose Cesarean for non-medical reasons. I argue that the alternative birth movement's essentialist and occasionally moralistic rhetoric is problematic, and the idea that some women's preference for high-tech obstetrics is the result of a passive 'socialization' into 'dominant values' is theoretically inadequate. On the other hand, the invocation of women's choice and appreciation of high-tech childbirth serves as a weak foundation for a feminist perspective on childbirth. By limiting their analysis to the rhetorical and discursive nature and functions of 'the medical' and 'the natural', poststructuralist critics of the alternative birth movement obscure the connection of these discourses to practices that have very different consequences for maternal and infant health and, most importantly, for the consumption of health care resources.

Medical, welfare, & legal responses to prenatal drug use are analyzed, arguing that changes in these areas are the result of cultural & political pressures, rather than medical or legal dictates. Also examined are beliefs that pregnant women are the primary threat to their fetuses; drug use is a moral & criminal, rather than social or medical, problem; & drug addiction is incurable. The effects of these beliefs & changing responses to prenatal drug use on hospital procedures are described. It is suggested that a new conceptualization of drug addiction, acknowledging social as well as medical factors, may lead to improved approaches to the problem. 125 References. J. Ferrari

AbstractSince the late twentieth century, as part of a broad effort to maximize the profitability of commercial spaces and address the complaints of business interests, cities have increasingly criminalized the presence and behavior of populations perceived as disorderly. The resulting police interactions produce a range of deleterious outcomes, particularly for individuals contending with mental health and substance use disorders, homelessness, and other behavioral health concerns. Against this backdrop, we provide a case study of Let Everyone Advance with Dignity (LEAD), a novel public safety intervention developed in Seattle, Washington. LEAD diverts businesses' disorder complaints from police and 911 toward program personnel who provide long‐term harm reduction services and resources. LEAD's non‐punitive approach has demonstrated success in reducing the harms of criminalization, improving individual outcomes, satisfying business grievances, and, more broadly, disrupting the defining logic and practices of neoliberal urbanism. LEAD's successes carry theoretical implications, demonstrating the need for nonpolice alternatives to reconfigure the organizational field of public safety by intervening into the longstanding coalition between businesses and police. The LEAD model also offers insights about the concrete steps necessary to ensure public safety and community vitality without police involvement.

AbstractStudies suggest that the spatial distribution of punishment in the United States is shifting. This article analyzes variation in prison admissions across U.S. counties to deepen our understanding of the contemporary geography of punishment. While research on punishment generally treats economic and political theories of punishment as distinct, we draw on recent studies of penal attitudes to develop a theoretical argument regarding their possible interconnection. We then use Hierarchical Linear Modeling to test the hypothesis that conservatism, race, and disadvantage are associated with the use of prison and that these factors help to explain why prison admission rates are higher in rural and suburban counties than in urban ones, despite notably higher crime rates in the latter. The results indicate that nonurban counties send more people to prison than urban counties and that socioeconomic disadvantage, the size of the Black population, and conservatism are significant predictors of prison admissions after controlling for crime‐related problems. These findings suggest that poverty, race, and politics work in concert to shape the distribution of punishment across 21st century America.

In the 1990s, city officials made a concerted effort to enhance security and civility in two large cities long associated with fear and danger: New York City and Bogotá, Colombia. In this article, a comparison is made of how 'quality of life' and 'civility' were conceptualised and pursued in New York City and Bogotá in the 1990s. The findings suggest that there were some similarities in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of these ideals, and that both cities became markedly safer in the period under investigation. Yet there were also important differences in the quality of life campaigns undertaken in the two settings. Specifically, measures to protect rights, enhance social services and expand the use of public spaces, particularly in poor communities, were a key component of Bogotá's quality of life campaign. The Bogotá example shows that it is possible to take crime and civility seriously without criminalising minor offences and by coupling security measures with broader initiatives to strengthen democratic inclusion.

In Seattle and other cities, recent expansions of trespass law make the regulation of public space easier and more extensive. A range of new tools allow police officials to clear spaces of those deemed undesirable; they define zones of exclusion and increase the police's power to make arrests. The use of these tools extends contemporary practices of using criminal law to address instances of urban 'disorder'. We draw on data from Seattle to catalog some of these new tools, the capabilities they create, and the implications they generate. One important such implication is that they work to push undesirables so far to the margins -- spatially, socially, politically, legally -- as to render them far outside the body politic. The use of these techniques thus raises important questions about the advisability of addressing social problems by increasing the power of the criminal law. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]