No Escape: The Future of American Corrections

This report by the director of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Policy Studies at Princeton University may become a seminal work in the literature of penology. Soliciting expert opinions--from police commissioners and officers, wardens, counselors, probation officers, parole agents--he presents a view from the trenches on how to make our corrections policies more effective. The book is admirably free of dogmatism, and steers a middle course between rigid conservativism and soft-line liberalism. This does not mean that DiLulio equivocates, however; much the opposite. For example, he characterizes lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key advocates as ``morally myopic morons.'' His impressive analysis of the prison system will be of great interest to professionals. (Jan.)