Political Media Review – PMR

An Expen$ive Way to Make Bad People Worse: An Essay on Prison Reform from an Insider’s Perspective

In this short book, author Jens Soering outlines several prison myths that he says obscure our ability to take a rational, informed, and effective approach to incarceration in the U.S. Using the introductory chapter to highlight recent trends in crime, incarceration, recidivism, and prison expenditures (data from 2001 were the most recently available during the time of this writing) Soering dedicates the remaining chapters to discuss six prison myths that he argues cloud our understanding, judgment, and ultimately practices of incarceration.