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AbstractThis article provides an overview of recent trends in imprisonment rates in America and introduces the articles in this issue of The Review of Policy Research. Incarceration rates have increased by more than 500 percent since the early 1970s and have now reached a rate of almost 700, higher than anywhere else in the world. The impact has been particularly hard on racial minorities, especially women (whose incarceration rate went from around 8 in 1975 to 59 in 2001). The "war on drugs" has been one of the main reasons behind the increases in imprisonment, along with the more general "get tough on crime" movement that began in the late 1970s. The articles in this issue center around how this recent trend in incarceration impacts the entire society, but especially poor communities. Several of the articles focus on race, age and gender as important variables, in addition to the tendency of the parole system to sort of "recycle" released prisoners back into the prison system.

This article provides an overview of recent trends in imprisonment rates in America & introduces the articles in this issue of The Review of Policy Research. Incarceration rates have increased by more than 500 percent since the early 1970s & have now reached a rate of almost 700, higher than anywhere else in the world. The impact has been particularly hard on racial minorities, especially women (whose incarceration rate went from around 8 in 1975 to 59 in 2001). The "war on drugs" has been one of the main reasons behind the increases in imprisonment, along with the more general "get tough on crime" movement that began in the late 1970s. The articles in this issue center around how this recent trend in incarceration impacts the entire society, but especially poor communities. Several of the articles focus on race, age, & gender as important variables, in addition to the tendency of the parole system to sort of "recycle" released prisoners back into the prison system. 19 References. Adapted from the source document.

There are now about 1.5 million people in US prisons, with an imprisonment rate exceeding all other industrialised societies. Add another 600,000 in local jails and there are more than 2 million locked up on any given day. The largest jump in the US prison population began in the mid-1970s, just as the 'war on drugs' was beginning

In the late 1800s & early 1900s, it was commonly believed that certain negative, inherited behaviors could be eliminated if the bearers of "bad seeds" could be prevented from reproducing. A new social movement arose from this line of thinking -- eugenics. An interest in genetic explanations for negative behavior was renewed with the publication of The Bell Curve and Crime and Human Nature -- two books that argue that certain ethnic groups are predisposed to criminal acts. Even more troubling than the information contained in these books are the drug companies that have joined psychiatrists in an effort to target certain at-risk (poor minority) populations. Drug therapies that will supposedly inhibit "natural" tendencies toward violence are in the research stage. The idea that certain individuals are "born criminal" is appalling & it is up to those in academia to expose this research agenda for what it is: a tangle of lies. K. A. Larsen

After the Doors Were Locked offers a look at the history of youth corrections in California from its origins to the present day. Macallair comments on the practices and how they have evolved throughout the centuries. This book also looks at the reforms currently taking place in California prison systems today.