NCJ Number
161959
Editor(s)
M Tonry
Date Published
1996
Length
450 pages
Annotation
Six research-review essays summarize important bodies of criminal-justice knowledge, including punishment policies, intermediate sanctions, academic performance and delinquency, the content of criminology research, theoretical integration in criminology, and the prevalence of drug use in the United States.
Abstract
The first essay argues for a correctional policy of "communicative punishment," which aims to bring the offender to repent of his crime, reform himself, and thus reconcile himself with those he has wronged. The second essay assesses various types of intermediate sanctions as well as intermediate sanctions as a whole; it concludes that intermediate sanctions can be a cost-effective means of reducing prison populations without sacrificing public safety, so long as the sanctions are properly implemented and administered and are used for the kinds of offenders for whom they are designed. The third essay used a meta-analysis of naturalistic studies to examine the academic performance-delinquency relationship; academic performance predicted delinquency independent of socioeconomic status. The primary aim of the fourth essay is to identify the most-cited scholars and most-cited works in the general volumes of "Crime and Justice: A Review of Research" between 1979 and 1993. In the fifth essay, the authors examine the debate about integration of criminology theories and provide an overview of various attempts to integrate them. The concluding essay assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the four major data sources on the prevalence of the use of illicit drugs: the National Household Survey on Drug abuse, the High School Senior Survey, the Drug Abuse Warning Network, and the Drug Use Forecasting System. For individual essays, see NCJ-16160-65. Chapter figures, tables, and references and author, subject, title, and volume indexes for Volumes 1-20 of the series