Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration Book

Okay, this is a great book, despite the fact that the guy who wrote it is not a great writer in the sense that, say, Ian McEwan is a great writer. But he's good in that he does seem to know what he's talking about, and he's able to bang out his case for serious policy changes in a straightforward, unwonky, and convincing way. If you're interested in prison policy -- and if you care at all about racism, classism, injustice, crime, government policy/priorities/expeditures, or similar stuff in that vein, you should be -- you ought to read this book. Though you might not wind up agreeing with everything he says, Jacobson throws a glaring searchlight across the great yard of corrections, including the dark corner of parole, illuminating a crucial policy area where, he argues, decisions of enormous cost and consequence are made every day with virtually no oversight or purpose. One of his big points is that understanding parole policy is key to making sense of mass incarceration, but very few people do pay attention to what goes on in the parole system. That's true! Unless you've been on parole, worked on parole, or spent a lot of time around people involved in these systems, chances are you don't really understand how it all works. But don't feel bad! According to Jacobson, almost nobody does, not even the big guys making all the laws and coming up with fancy plans for prison policy.... and they're missing out, because this shit is actually really fascinating.

The book isn't only about parole, either, if that doesn't get you going; Jacobson used to be the Correction Commissioner, so he knows what for about how these systems are run, and provides entry-level insight into mysterious creatures like budgets and all those unsexy, grunty, bureaucratic levels of government which we try not to think about, but which really do shape our society.

While reading this, I fell into a lovely reverie in which I dropped out of social work school and trotted across town to John Jay, where this guy teaches, to get some kind of a degree over there instead. I haven't wound up doing that just yet, but I'm pretty sure my new understanding of the ways technical violations have affected the size of California's prison population over the years will serve me well in the future.