Background
Harcourt, Bernard E. was born on January 28, 1963 in New York City.
( This is the first book to challenge the "broken-window...)
This is the first book to challenge the "broken-windows" theory of crime, which argues that permitting minor misdemeanors, such as loitering and vagrancy, to go unpunished only encourages more serious crime. The theory has revolutionized policing in the United States and abroad, with its emphasis on policies that crack down on disorderly conduct and aggressively enforce misdemeanor laws. The problem, argues Bernard Harcourt, is that although the broken-windows theory has been around for nearly thirty years, it has never been empirically verified. Indeed, existing data suggest that it is false. Conceptually, it rests on unexamined categories of "law abiders" and "disorderly people" and of "order" and "disorder," which have no intrinsic reality, independent of the techniques of punishment that we implement in our society. How did the new order-maintenance approach to criminal justice--a theory without solid empirical support, a theory that is conceptually flawed and results in aggressive detentions of tens of thousands of our fellow citizens--come to be one of the leading criminal justice theories embraced by progressive reformers, policymakers, and academics throughout the world? This book explores the reasons why. It also presents a new, more thoughtful vision of criminal justice.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674015908/?tag=2022091-20
( Legal and public policies concerning youth gun violence...)
Legal and public policies concerning youth gun violence tend to rely heavily on crime reports, survey data, and statistical methods. Rarely is attention given to the young voices belonging to those who carry high-powered semiautomatic handguns. In Language of the Gun, Bernard E. Harcourt recounts in-depth interviews with youths detained at an all-malecorrectional facility, exploring how they talk about guns and what meanings they ascribe to them in a broader attempt to understand some of the assumptions implicit in current handgun policies. In the process, Harcourt redraws the relationships among empirical research, law, and public policy. Home to over 150 repeat offenders ranging in age from twelve to seventeen, the Catalina Mountain School is made up of a particular stratum of boys—those who have committed the most offenses but will still be released upon reaching adulthood. In an effort to understand the symbolic and emotional language of guns and gun carrying, Harcourt interviewed dozens of these incarcerated Catalina boys. What do these youths see in guns? What draws them to handguns? Why do some of them carry and others not? For Harcourt, their often surprising answers unveil many of the presuppositions that influence our laws and policies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226316092/?tag=2022091-20
Harcourt, Bernard E. was born on January 28, 1963 in New York City.
Bachelor of Arts in Politics, Princeton University, 1984. Juris Doctor cum laude, Harvard University, 1989. Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science, Harvard University, 2000.
Law clerk to Honorary Charles S. Haight, Junior United States District Court Southern District New York, 1989—1990. Trial and appellate attorney Equal Justice Initiative, Montgomery, Alabama, 1990—1994. Senior fellow graduate program Harvard University, 1995—1997.
Associate professor law University Arizona, 1998—2003, associate professor philosophy, 1998—2003, director Rogers Program on Law, Philosophy and Social Inquiry, 1998—2003. Professor law University Chicago Law School, since 2003, faculty director academic affairs, since 2003. Visiting professor law Harvard University, 2001—2002, New York University, 2002—2003.
( This is the first book to challenge the "broken-window...)
( Legal and public policies concerning youth gun violence...)
(New edition)