The New Social Contract: America's Journey from Welfare State to Police State

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According to the Justice Department's National Crime Survey, the crime rate in the United States is lower today than it was when Nixon was in the White House. In spite of this, political leaders demand nationwide prison construction as a response to the war on drugs and to accommodate the results of the new three strikes law. At the same time, the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever and the needs of the non-disruptive poor are being ignored by the economic and political elites to the point of unprecedented homelessness. The author predicts this widening gap will prompt the return of 1960s-style civil turmoil which will lead to the end of the war on drugs and the emptying of hundreds of thousands of cells so the protesting poor can be plausibly threatened with incarceration.

Reviews

"In this lively and bracing book, Joe Davey points to the underlying connections between shrinking social policy budgets and rapidly rising prison budgets. Each provide a kind of solution: social policies ameliorate poverty by reducing want and expanding opportunities; criminal policies "solve" the problem of poverty by labeling and incarcerating ever-larger numbers of people. His argument is a chilling and convincing commentary on contemporary American politics, and it needs to be read."-Frances Fox Piven The City University of New York

Author Bio

JOSEPH DILLON DAVEY is a lawyer, political scientist, and writer of numerous journal articles on public policy. He has taught law, political science, and criminal justice on the undergraduate and graduate level for the past 20 years.