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Alternatives to the Carceral State: The Judge’s Role

Congress and the courts that the papers in this volume dramatize. The academy, or especially, the sponsor of the conference from which this volume derives, the New School-has highlighted the extraordinarily troubling implications of the mass imprisonment of the past two decades, the racial disparities, the social dislocation to poor communities and communities of color, the impact on this democracy of felon disenfranchisement, the extent to which retribution has surpassed all other purposes of punishment, displacing any effort to determine "what works" to reduce crime. But the public is barely a participant in these discussions. If it reads the tabloids, watches television, or surfs the Internet, it hears an entirely different story, a story about dangerous crime rates and impending doom, a story about fear and retribution. And so long as it hears that story, it will support ever more punitive laws, and rail against judges who are widely perceived to be lenient.