Spells out how American crime policy has reached the lowpoint it has and where we can go from here. This work explains how the worst of policies can be undone and how the avoidable human suffering they produce can be diminished.

In this wide-ranging analysis, Michael Tonry argues that those responsible for crafting America's criminal justice policy have lost their way in a forest of good intentions, political cynicism, and public anxieties. American crime control politics over time have created a punishment system no
one would knowingly have chosen yet one that no one seems able to change. Prevailing sensibilities rather than timeless truths govern the American war on crime, resulting in policies both wasteful and harsh. U.S. crime trends closely resemble those of other nations, yet American policies, shaped by
different sensibilities, are much more punitive.
Seamlessly blending history with an easy presentation of day-to-day realities and empirical evidence, Tonry proposes tangible, specific solutions that can serve as a platform for criminal justice reform. We know how to create an effective and humane criminal justice system. Now we must have the
courage to do so, by abandoning the current status quo, which is both costly and cruel in favor of practices that will move America closer to the mainstream of contemporary Western values.

...an engaged but evidence-based argument, and it brings alive the literature which it reviews. While its intended audience was probably the intelligent American politician, it deserves to be read widely, not least by criminology students.