Creating criminals

Vivien Stern explains the forces dictating the shape and direction of crime patterns and criminal justice responses globally, arguing that many policies being pursued today, including the so-called war on drugs and economic policies that increase inequality, are actually creating crimes. She argues convincingly that the way forward is not harsher prisons or letting commercial corporations make money out of privatized prisons. Instead, a new criminal justice agenda should involve minimal use of the criminal justice system, with policing accountable to local communities, imprisonment as a last resort, morally educative penalties that benefit victims rather than just punishing the perpetrators, and a renewed emphasis on social justice and economic development that benefits all people.