I've just started reading a fascinating book called Thinking About Crime by Michael Tonry.
It's subtitle is Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture. From the preface:
The United States has a punishment system that no one would knowingly have built from the ground up. It is often unjust, it is unduly severe, it is wasteful, and it does enormous damage to the lives of black Americans.Posted by jt at January 25, 2004 03:21 PM