Corrections_Today_January_February_2020_Vol.82_No.1

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bettering of persons, but solely for the punishment of persons. And as the book eludes, as long as prisons are solely for the punishment of people, they will fail. Many of the components of this failure are discussed to include overcriminalization of crimes, the overlapping of crimes, the lack of mens rea of a person committing a crime, the proliferation of mandatory minimums and habitual felon laws, the vagueness of law, and some others are detailed. These are realities but rather to discuss the realities, it may be more helpful in the reasons for why

prisons fail to discuss how to counter the fear, which causes at least half of our society to believe we are not tough enough on crime. The authors may not desire to tackle this, but it is my opinion the book would have much more value if a frank discussion would occur on punitive action and fear. A chapter of the book is devoted to, “As Prosecutors Say, ‘Follow the Money’: Prisons and Profits.” When reading this chapter, much time is given to discussing the evils of private prisons and government-run prisons where the notion is that we keep our

prisons full because of economics. There is some validity to this as anyone who has had to close a prison knows it is a huge economic driver especially in rural areas of our country. But the other economic axiom of supply and demand is almost ignored. If there is not a need for prison beds, it would have been much more productive for the authors to suggest alternatives to traditional prison beds. I remember vividly in 1980, before the War on Drugs took off, Norm Carlson was imploring us to design prisons which had multiple uses such as

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