Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis by Christian Parenti ISBN: 1-85984-303-4 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.94 (17 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Important, but...
Comment: Factually, this is an excellent book. Parenti is a gifted writer, and the criminal justice system has long needed an expose of this type. His writing and research are on the firmest ground when writing about the prison system, which should be read by everyone who thinks prison is somehow a "country club." It's also high time that somebody criticized William Bratton and the rather brutal police tactics he legitimized.
Although Parenti makes no secret of his far-left intellectual leanings, it does undermine his credibility in places. His recounting of the Amadou Diallo case, for example, misstates the facts, and he seems to believe that crime is something invented by big-city cops to harass young black men. Crime is real, and, as anyone who lives in a city can attest, the fear of it is also real--not just for whites but, to an even greater extent, for law-abiding blacks. To Parenti, agressive policing is a sop to yuppies and "gentrification" proponents so that the well-to-do can walk to their corner Starbucks unmolested. No--we'd all like to live in a crime-free environment, and we all have that right.
That said, this is an important book, and well worth reading and discussing.
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent writing style - Important reading
Comment: My review of Christian Parenti's "Lockdown America" is highly favorable. A common complaint of expose, issue books is the tendency of authors to abuse statistics and facts at the expense of stylistic wholeness- not so with this book. Mr. Parenti's history as a seasoned journalist shows in his concise prose and the logical organization of the text. This book is guaranteed to get you very upset at the Reagan-Bush-Clinton law and order crusade (unless you think this book is written by a conspiracy-theorist with suspicious funding. Heh! What are you reading this for anyways?) My only issue is similar to other reviewers, but from a different perspective. Whenever Mr. Parenti comes to economic matters, there seems a strange switch from confident description to fumbling critique, of capitalism in particular. Is Mr. Parenti hampered in his economic diction? (by his editor perhaps?) This is written for mostly middle class, U.S. consumption after all. Can we honestly expect Mr. Parenti to do something like include an appendix on introductory neo-marxian theory for the 21st century while making reference to it in the book? Did you read Marx in school? I sure didn't. Why confuse the important issues or scare away interested, but wary people. Speaking TO the people, not OVER the people is a good idea. But this really is a minor point. I think most readers will hardly notice this and be mesmerised by the forcefulness of his argument, as was I.
Rating: 2
Summary: The liberal Rush Limbaugh
Comment: When I embarked upon reading this book, I thought I would be getting a fair and precise look into the American legal system. What I got was anything but that. Anybody wanting to read this book should know that Parenti is an extreme left-winger and this book is an acidic ribbing of the Republican Party, police offers, etc. etc. I do admit that Parenti is quite knowledgeable about the justice system and he provides many examples -- this book is full of examples to back up his points. But there is a problem: the only examples he gives are examples of police malfeasance, he never tells police success stories.
Also, my other major complaint is that throughout much of the book, he assumes a Rush Limbaugh personae and just starts taking irrelevant, low blows at people. He calls Rudy Giuliani a "ghoul," he sarcastically calls Dan Quayle "that towering intellect," and he even goes so far as to make fun of the way New York City Police Chiefs dress while they are off duty.
Overall, this book is not very scholarly in tone. It states that there is a problem, but he never offers a solution to the problem - it is just a couple hundred pages of non-stop whining and Limbaugh-esque mocking of people he disagrees with.
If you are looking for a good introduction to contemporary American justice and the legal system, I HIGHLY suggest you look elsewhere.
 |
Title: The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America from Slavery to the War on Terror by Christian Parenti ISBN: 0465054846 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor by Tara Herivel, Paul Wright ISBN: 0415935385 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: Search and Destroy : African-American Males in the Criminal Justice System by Jerome G. Miller ISBN: 0521598583 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 28 June, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
 |
Title: Race to Incarcerate by Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project ISBN: 1565846834 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment by Marc Mauer, Meda Chesney-Lind ISBN: 1565848489 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
