The Handbook of Crime and Punishment
Edited with an introduction by Michael Tonry (2000), The Handbook of Crime and Punishment is a comprehensive, nearly encyclopedic, work that offers a host of statistics, data, and perspectives on contemporary issues on crime in American society. Crime and justice are a highly politicized aspect of American society, ones that are often fueled by emotions as much as concrete data or rational analysis. TonryÆs (2000) purpose of the work that includes trends in criminal justice as well as a number of essays on contemporary issues in crime, is to ôenable a fundamental understanding of crime and punishment essential to an informed publicö (Back Cover). The work offers more than two dozen essays on contemporary issues in crime from white collar crime and sex offenders to organized crime and youth gangs, in addition to providing a wealth of statistical information on current demographic trends related to crime like the race or gender of convicted criminals.
While most of the work focuses on U.S. crime, issues, and statistics, Tonry (2000) does provide a comparison and contrast with data from international research. For example, because they are not elected for life terms as they are in many other nations, American judges are more influenced, especially in elections years, of ôthe public moodö or ôwhat they perceive as the public mood,ö according to Tonry (2000, p. 31).
In his introduction, Tonry (2000) basically discusses how crime and justice are often politicized in American society with public sentiment influencing politicians to a great degree, especially during election years. Even Supreme Court Justices are influenced by the public mood on controversial issues from gay marriage and abortion to drug policy and gun control. However, the author argues that on some of these issues the Justices have failed to make a full analysis in assessing the reality of the public mood. As Tonr...