Cheap on Crime

After forty years of increasing prison construction and incarceration rates, winds of change are blowing through the American correctional system. The 2008 financial crisis demonstrated the unsustainability of the incarceration project, thereby empowering policy makers to reform punishment through fiscal prudence and austerity. In Cheap on Crime, Hadar Aviram draws on years of archival and journalistic research and builds on social history and economics literature to show the powerful impact of recession-era discourse on the death penalty, the war on drugs, incarceration practices, prison health care, and other aspects of the American correctional landscape.

“After decades of stability, mass incarceration is suddenly shapeshifting with enormous speed. Long-held debates are quickly becoming outdated. Aviram has provided us an incisive analysis of this transformation in progress and a lexicon for the new language of carceral power.”

Jonathan SimonAdrian A. Kragen Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley

"Thought-provoking and notable work... Cheap on Crime documents how market values have come to dominate the discourse on American corrections since the Great Recession. A welcome edition to the literature at the intersection of economics and criminology."

Larry KarsonSocial Science Journal

“Masterfully interrogates the economic logics that underpin our America’s massive penal crisis in the wake of the Great Recession. Aviram offers a wonderfully rich analysis of the emerging ‘cheap on crime’ ethos.”

Mona LynchProfessor of Criminology, Law, and Society and Law, University of California, Irvine

Euthanize the Death Penalty Already: Scenes from Capital Punishment’s Chronic Deathbed

I Was Right About Recession-Era Decarceration: Population Has Decreased and So Have Racial Disparities

Free Phone Calls from Prison – And Not a Moment Too Soon

Fighting Ridiculous Court Fees – One Piece at a Time

Paying for Your Time: Low-Level Financial Hassles and Criminal Justice

AB 2730 Proposes a Prison-Release Continuum

Add a Comment Cancel reply