Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice 8th Edition [Paperback]

Jeffrey Reiman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 23, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0205461727 | ISBN-13: 978-0205461721 | Edition: 8

This best-selling text examines the premise that the criminal justice system is biased against the poor from start to finish, from the definition of what constitutes a crime through the process of arrest, trial, and sentencing. Also, this text discusses how this bias is accompanied with a general refusal to remedy the causes of crime--poverty, lack of education, and discrimination. One reviewer describes this text as "one of the most outstanding critiques of the criminal justice process!a book that needed to be written and needs to be publishing again and again!a text as relevant today as when first published in 1979." The author argues that actions of well-off people, such as refusal to make workplaces safe, refusal to curtail deadly pollution, promotion of unnecessary surgery, and prescriptions for unnecessary drugs, cause occupational and environmental hazards to innocent members of the public and produce just as much death, destruction, and financial loss as so-called crimes of the poor. However, these acts of the well-off are rarely treated as crimes, and when they are, they are never treated as severely as crimes of the poor.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Description

 

This best-selling text, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, eighth edition, examines the premise that the criminal justice system is biased against the poor from start to finish: from the definition of what constitutes a crime through the process of arrest, trial, and sentencing.

 

The author argues that actions of well-off people, such as refusal to make workplaces safe, refusal to curtail deadly pollution, promotion of unnecessary surgery, and prescriptions for unnecessary drugs, cause occupational and environmental hazards to innocent members of the public and produce just as much death, destruction, and financial loss as so-called crimes of the poor. However, these acts of the well-off are rarely treated as crimes, and when they are, they are never treated as severely as crimes of the poor.

 

As with every edition, this text has been thoroughly revised. Some of the latest revisions include the following:

*        Current statistics on criminal and noncriminal harms

*        New section at the end of Chapter 1, “A Word about Foucault”

*        Also in Chapter 1, a brief comment on Rawls’s theory of justice added to the section on poverty as a known cause of crime

*         New appendix, “Between Philosophy and Criminology,” argues that criminology has a special need for philosophical reflection, and states the philosophical assumptions underlying The Rich Get Richer

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon; 8 edition (July 23, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0205461727
• ISBN-13: 978-0205461721
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #292,160 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone Needs to Know, September 30, 2007

By 

N. Amsden "MindExpander" (Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice 8th Edition (Paperback)

Some criticisms of this book have been that the theoretical positions are not sound. However, the statistics presented are what they are and they are IMPORTANT! This book is, at the least, a fantastic source for viewing statistics on crime from all of the important sociological sources in one, comprehensive source.

Theoretical positions in sociology are never 100% accurate. They can't be. The author is putting his theories out there to get you to THINK. The responsibility of any reader of sociological issues, such as crime, is to read multiple sources and develop their own theories, based on the research. This book is an excellent place to start. It points out that our criminal justice system is not only failing to prevent, or even improve, crime - it is actually set up to functionally encourage or perpetuate crime! And, all the facts and statistics are there to prove it. Judge for yourself whether the author's theories as to why and how this problem persists are of value or not. I think he's on to something.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed discussion of class and criminal justice, November 10, 2006

By 

Walt Byars (Tampa, Fl) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice 8th Edition (Paperback)

First off, I do not know how much the content of this book changes from edition to edition. I have read two subsequent editions of this book and there was some updating of analysis but mostly updating of statistics. I am unsure how much this applies to changes between other editions.

In this book, Reiman shows how the criminal justice system discriminates against the poor at every turn. The anti-social acts most likely to be committed by poor people are crimes, while those most likely to be committed by rich people are not. Of people who commit the acts which are considered criminal, the poor are more likely to be caught. Of these people, the poor are most likely to be convicted. Of those convicted, the poor get harsher sentences. Reiman presents lots of interesting and convincing evidence to demonstrate these points.

However, he goes further and attempts to show how this helps to reproduce the capitalist system, and that this is why these inequities persist. Unfortunately, his analysis in this regard is very much wanting. Some of his arguments that these inequities help reproduce the system are good, some aren't. At the beginning of the book, Reiman promises to demonstrate how the benefits to capital of this irrational system of "justice" keep us from fixing the criminal justice system without resorting to conspiracy theory. His starting point is basically that we have this system because of historical inertia. Those who benefit from it didn't create it, but they keep us from fixing it. However, it seems as if all of his criticisms of the idea of a conspiracy to create it would apply equally to his idea of the powerful preventing the system from getting fixed, or even their inactivity with regards to reform (his main criticism of conspiracy theory is that people usually don't do things they know are this socially harmful in order to benefit themselves, so why do they allow this system to keep going in order to benefit themselves?)

In some editions of this book, there is a supplementart chapter in which he tries to sketch an alternative to his "historical inertia" theory. However, it is based on the outdated writings of certain Marxian legal theorists, without any mention of more current Marxian legal theory. This chapter is totally useless, although I think that some application of Marxian legal theory (but not the way Reiman does it!) would be the key to understanding the origins and reproduction of htis inequitable system of criminal justice.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rich Get Richer, February 17, 2009

By 

Lorna D. Frazier "redbone reader" (greenville, ms USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice 8th Edition (Paperback)

Is a very thoughtful and true to form read. It gives insighful information and facts to ponder. Very good and interesting.