A clearly argued, sure-to-be-controversial book.
Why better training of police officers is inadequate to reduce strained relations between law enforcement and minority or impoverished communities and why it is necessary to completely rethink the role of police in America.
In a tightly constructed monograph filled with reform suggestions, Vitale (Sociology/Brooklyn Coll.; City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics, 2008, etc.) decries the evolution of police agencies as tools of the white establishment to suppress dissatisfaction among the have-nots. The author understands the role of police in trying to solve violent crimes such as rapes and homicides, but he believes police should no longer serve as the chief combatants against narcotics use, street gangs, border patrol, prostitution between consenting adults, homelessness, mental illness, and misbehaving adolescents. Instead, Vitale suggests either decriminalization of certain behaviors or non–law enforcement solutions, such as government agencies and private organizations that could, for example, work with the homeless to provide them with permanent shelter. The author explains how, during Prohibition, a heavy-handed law enforcement approach to alcohol use and the outlawing of gambling led to counterproductive outcomes. As police agencies arrested alcohol sellers and purchasers, organized crime thrived, numerous police officers accepted graft, and violence involving sales increased—and yet the availability of illegal alcohol remained steady. Vitale realizes that none of the reforms he offers would eliminate violent crime. A reduction is quite likely, however, if governments and philanthropic entities make concerted efforts to reach out to troubled neighborhoods to provide improved education, creation of local businesses, meaningful job training, and actual jobs that pay above minimum wage. Whether society’s wealthy or police themselves are willing to back down from the warrior mentality is debatable, but Vitale maintains that a complete reset of the role law enforcement agencies play in rural and urban areas would be beneficial and is worth an attempt.
A clearly argued, sure-to-be-controversial book.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78478-289-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Verso
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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