Samuel Walker - Sense and Nonsense About Crime, Drugs, and Communities

In Ch. 1 Walker argues as a society we really don't understand the nature of criminal activity or how our system works. He argues, like many, that we have two problems- those that affect the white and middle class and those affecting people of color, the poor, and young people of color in particular. He argues that the "war on crime" demonizes offenders and causes problems with integration later in life.

He also explains conservative and liberal view on crime. Conservatives tend to want to lock up criminal and throw away the key, believing that criminals need to take responsibility for their low self control. Liberals, generally speaking, look to rehabilitation and treatment instead. Rather than a personal choice, they see crime as a result of social influences and see the system as overly punitive.

In Ch. 2, he talks about Old Idealism, New Cynicism, and introduces Sober Realism. The Old Idealism is basically what we were taught the law was- it is black and white. New Cynicism is the opposite, stating nothing goes by the books. Sober Realism talks about how the criminal justice system actually works today.

Following that, Walker discusses the wedding cake model first developed by Friedman and Percival in The Roots of Justice.

 

The model demonstrates there are significant differences between each layer and the types of cases in each layer.

 

The top layer consists of celebrated cases which are not really reflective of our system but get a lot of publicity and are thus "celebrated cases".

 

Following that are serious felonies, then less serious, and finally misdemeanors. Here, according to Malcolm Feely (1979), the process is the punishment.

 

Ch. 3 focuses on the going rate for cases, touching specifically on courtroom players and discretion while Ch. 4 focuses on the difficulty in predicting who will commit crime.

 

 

More to come...

 

 Walker, Samuel. (2011). Sense and Nonsense about Crime, Drugs, and Community: A Policy Guide (7th Ed.). Wadsworth: Belmont, CA.