Thinking About Crime

James Q. Wilson wrote Thinking About Crime to help create a more realistic and effective way of dealing with crime. He argues that politicians do not have a clear picture of what causes crime or what will help society deal with it, and they do not follow through on their pledges in this area. Wilson himself, in his Introduction, argues that rehabilitation does not work, that social spending to stop crime has not worked well, and that punishment, deterrence and incapacitation do work and should be pursued.

Chapter 1 looks back at the special circumstances of the 1960s. Wilson makes a number of speculations about what "might have happened" if the 1960s had not been so hectic (drugs, war, the Great Society), but he concludes that the liberal attitudes of society and the media helped foster conditions leading to increases in crime. The efforts to reduce crime through social programs for the disadvantaged were not successful. Each time something was tried in the 1960s, the situation would become worse (as when unemployment increased while Great Society programs tried to fight it.

Chapter 2 considers further how crime increases in times of prosperity---as in the 1960s. One of the most harmful effects of crime is its destruction of a sense of community. Wilson argues that community is built on values, and crime destroys the sense of values. Social programs can help build communities by allowing people to move up the ladder socioeconomically. The increase in crime in the 1960s wa

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rolling the criminal who uses the gun rather than on the gun. Wilson presents strong and convincing arguments for his positions. Crime has worsened since his revised book in 1983, so his points have even greater clout today. Society---with the emphasis on "three strikes, you're out" laws---has come around to Wilson's conservative position, with less emphasis on liberal social approaches to reducing crime. When he writes about heroin instead of about cocaine, and when he ignores gangs, we are reminded that the work is a decade old and somewhat dated. Still, Wilson fairly presents both sides of every issue, and is not arrogant about his conclusions. He takes the realistic approach to every issue, arguing that there are efforts that work, there are those that don't, and if we want to really reduce crime we have to be honest about it. We cannot waste time debating such philosophical issues as human nature, when our communities are being destroyed by criminals. Increasing incapacitation will increase costs in the short-term, but in the long-term it will pay off socially. Bibliography Wilson, James Q. Thinking About Crime. New York: Vintage, 1985. Elliott Currie, in Confronting Crime: An American Challenge, essentially argues tha

Category: Government - T