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Abstract: 

The eight books reviewed cover the following areas: one person’s experience with confinement in prison in the 1930s and 1940s, which reminds us that only the scale and scope of imprisonment has changed; a discussion of mass incarceration with helpful recommendations for dealing with the problem; a nice summary of books related to the work of Daniel Patrick Moynihan; another on the Rockefeller drug laws and the politics of punishment; and two books examining juvenile justice in the United States and across the world. Reviewed: “Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim” by Justin Gifford, Doubleday; “A Country Called Prison: Mass Incarceration and the Making of a New Nation” by Mary D. Looman and John D. Carl, Oxford University Press; “The Professor and the President: Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House” by Stephen Hess, Brookings Institution Press; “American Burke: The Uncommon Liberalism of Daniel Patrick Moynihan” by Greg Weiner, University Press of Kansas; “Beyond Civil Rights: T he Moynihan Report and Its Legacy” by Daniel Geary, University of Pennsylvania Press; “Blaming the Poor: The Long Shadow of the Moynihan Report on Cruel Images About Poverty” by Susan D. Greenbaum, Rutgers University Press; “Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment” by Michael Javen Fortner, Harvard University Press; “A Return to Justice: Rethinking Our Approach to Juveniles in the System” by Ashley Nellis, Rowman & Littlefield; and “Juvenile Justice in Global Perspective” edited by Franklin E. Zimring, Maximo Langer, and David S. Tanenhaus, New York University Press.

Keywords: Mass Incarceration; Daniel Patrick Moynihan; Rockefeller’s Drug Law; Juvenile Justice

Affiliations:  1: Contributing Editor.