Book Review of Reiman essays

Book Review of Reiman essays Book Review: The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison Jeffrey Reiman is the author of several books, including Abortion and the Ways We Value Life. His some of his other works are Critical Moral Liberalism: Theory The main theme of this book is just what the title is, the rich get richer and the poor get prison, which occurs because of our present economic system. In this system we try to justify distorted definitions of crime and criminals, uneven wealth distribution, poverty, and a criminal justice system that does not protect us against the gravest threats to life, limb, or possessions (90). One of the main topics in this book that helps support the main theme is the idea that the criminal justice system is a failure. Most importantly, our efforts to stop criminal offenses have not worked. The slight advancements that have been made are not likely to be because of new measures taken by the criminal justice system. This failure continues even though we know how to handle many of our social problems. It is further helped by four specific excuses. This excuses are, we are too soft on crime (19), crime in an inescapable companion of any complex, populous, industrialized society (20), attributing crime to young people (23), and lastly, we dont know how to reduce crime (26). On this final excuse, Reiman tells the reader that we do have enough knowledge to have a huge impact on crime, that is of course, if we wanted to. He states, We know that poverty, slums, and unemployment are sources of street crime. We do no fully understand how they cause crime... (28). Society is aware of the positive effects of a good education. Society is also aware of the negative consequences of the readily available guns and failure to h...