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With the growing recognition of the ineffectiveness of harsh punishments for decreasing the violence rates and ensuring social justice, the underlying causes of the policy failures, their effects and the possible improvements are being discussed by modern criminologists. The book Thinking about crime: Sense and sensibility in American penal culture by Michael Tonry provides a valuable insight into the major triggers and drawbacks of the American criminal justice policies and offers the adoption of a more humane approach to policymaking as an effective alternative to harsh but irrational penalties.
The major themes developed in Tonry’s book Thinking about crime: Sense and sensibility in American penal culture include the major underlying processes triggering policymaking in America, the legal foundation of penal policies and their ineffectiveness for decreasing the crime rates. Tonry views the changing sensibilities in the form of the established social values (long-term trends) and moral panics (short-term effects) as the main influential factor in the process of shaping the penal policies. Evaluating Tonry’s work under consideration, Kudlac (2007) emphasized the role of moral panic in opening the window of opportunity for policymakers who can use it at their own discretion (p. 5). Estimating the legal foundation for the current penal policies, Tonry (2007) admitted that policymakers typically overact to the moral panic and design punitive laws not only lacking rationale but also cost-ineffective. Tonry discusses the three-strikes laws and the mandatory minimum sentences as examples of byproducts of the aggressive elective strategies which have been implemented by politicians since the 1970s. The criminologist’s estimation of the effectiveness of the draconian punitive laws can be regarded as the thesis of the whole book: “Current policies are too severe, waste lives and money, and often produce unjust results” (Tonry, 2007, p. 3). Rejecting the proposal of other scholars to legitimate the role of shaming in the legal punishments, Tonry (2007) outlines the benefits of adopting the humane approach “contrasted with the destructive shaming of the traditional criminal justice system that ostracizes, alienates, and often breeds defiance or leads to rejection of pro-social norms and attachment to antisocial ones” (p. 163). Thus, along with criticizing the aggressive punitive policies of the past, the criminologist offers to adopt a more humane and rationalistic approach to designing the penal policies as the effective solution for the existing problem of harsh and ineffective punitive laws.
Tonry’s goals of explaining the main underlying processes of American penal policymaking and the adverse effects of irrational decisions driven by the moral panic and the politicians’ inclination of gaining authority among the potential voters and offering a more effective solution for the existing problem were successfully achieved in the book under consideration. First of all, Tonry provides a rationale for his assumptions: “Prison does not work in the sense that most people released from prison do not manage to thereafter to conduct law-abiding lives and to refrain from the kinds of unlawful behavior that lead to apprehension, conviction and imprisonment” (Tonry, 2007, p. 187). Along with theoretical assumptions, the criminologist provides valuable statistical data and discusses concrete legislative acts as examples of the governments’ attempts of manipulating public opinion. Thus, discussing the socio-economic factors underlying the deviant behavior, Tonry (2007) noted that currently, about one-third of young black men are incarcerated or on the probation period (p. 163). Discussing the changes in the sentencing patterns taking place during the 1970s and 1980s, the author admitted that sentences for violent crimes have tripled. These statistics data illustrate the rates of the social shifts and problems and make Tonry’s assumptions more persuasive. Thus, it can be stated that along with personal assumptions of Tonry as an acknowledged expert in the sphere, the book under consideration contains valuable data on the policymaking tendencies and the critical discussion of particular legislative acts.
Tonry’s thesis concerning the inappropriateness and ineffectiveness of the penal policies is aligned with Walker’s assumption made in Sense and nonsense about crime and drugs that the main problems of the penal policies analysis are the lack of evidentiary standards and the lack of ideas for designing the effective solutions for the problem. Discussing the underlying processes in the penal policymaking, Tonry himself pointed at the lack of rationale in imposing the draconian punitive measures which often have adverse effects upon the crime and violence rates. Criticizing the three-strikes laws, the mandatory minimum sentences, and the sexual psychopath laws, Tonry noted that there was no credible evidence that these harsh measures had any positive impact upon public safety and justice. Regarding the second part of Walker’s assumption concerning the lack of effective solutions for the existing problems, it can be stated that Tonry’s proposal of adopting a more humane approach for designing the penal policies which would affect the underlying causes of the crimes is to general. Moreover, Tonry (2007) recognized that though the present-day community is prepared for meliorating the draconian laws, the recent reforms are only the first steps on the way to adopting a more effective strategy and reconsidering the crime legislation and its main underpinnings.
Tonry’s explanation of American criminal justice policy provides a valuable insight into the processes predetermining the design of the harsh Rockefeller drug laws in remote 1970s, major reasons for their failure, and the demand for reforming them arising in the early 2000s. Thus, the increase of the drug epidemic and the drug-related crimes caused a moral panic in the American community in the 1970s which in its turn has changed the public sensibility towards the harsh punishments and opened the window of opportunities for the policymakers. Governor Rockefeller has taken the advantage of this opportunity for gaining additional authority and respect of potential voters and his draconian policies went down into history as the war on drugs and Rockefeller drug laws. The punitive laws which outlined the prolonged sentences even for non-violent offenders and increased the American in-mate population significantly lacked rationale. However, serious consideration to inappropriateness and ineffectiveness of Rockefeller laws was given only in the early 2000s after the three decades of aggressive war on drugs. In general, the moral panics can be regarded as the main underlying cause which triggered the design of the harsh punitive measures, substituting the logical rationale and evidentiary framework required for designing effective punitive measures with the aspects of public panic and political manipulations. Then, the 2009 reform of the Rockefeller drug laws can be considered as the step forward on the way of adopting a more humane approach to criminal justice policies though further research of the effects is required for evaluating the effectiveness of the reform and generating new ideas for improving the anti-drug policies.
In general, it can be concluded that Tonry’s book Thinking about crime: Sense and sensibility in American penal culture contains strong arguments for supporting its main thesis concerning the irrationality and ineffectiveness of American criminal justice policies and provides a valuable insight into the underlying processes which predetermined the enactment of the Rockefeller drug laws and their recent reforms.
Reference List
Kudlac, C. (2007). Public executions: The death penalty and the media. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Tonry, M. (2004). Thinking about crime: Sense and sensibility in American penal culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
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