Customer Reviews

Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the prospect of sanction (Routledge Studies in Crime and Economics)

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What an excellent book! This well-written and easily understandable book should be required reading for all criminology students and all public policy students. Kennedy moves the discussion of deterrence far beyond the normal focus on certainty vs. severity of punishment. For example, most potential criminals don't know what their punishment might be (maybe we should inform them), what actually motivates them is often not what we might think (e.g., that they won't get to see their girl friend), and enforcement is often better directed at groups (e.g., gangs) rather than at individuals (e.g. gang members). David Kennedy's book is both a very thoughtful academic tour-de-force, and a very practical book for practitioners. I cannot recommend it too highly.

From Boston's Cease-Fire to the High Point low-arrest drug-market crackdown, David Kennedy has been going around the country working crime-control miracles for nearly two decades now. Now he's written down the formula, and the thinking behind it. No one serious about crime control can afford not to read this book

It looks like a very interesting book, but the price is outrageous. Something like a dollar per sheet of paper. I don't think the ideas promoted by this text will get very far at that price.