Presidents and Mass Incarceration: Choices at the Top, Repercussions at the Bottom

Taking a new and innovative approach to the subject, this book looks at how U.S. presidents and their administrations' policies from the late 1960s to 2017 have led to rampant over-imprisonment and a public policy catastrophe in the United States.

• Explains how presidential "tough-on-crime" rhetoric fueled by the public's fear of crime led to the war on crime, the war on drugs, and the war on gangs, resulting in the nation becoming known as "Prison America"

• Presents undeniable evidence that U.S. presidents have played a major role in America's imprisonment tragedy

• Provides a careful analysis of mass incarceration through presidential leadership to document how seemingly well-intentioned choices made at the top have had devastating repercussions on the bottom realm of our society