Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2017 -

In this timely and masterful synthesis of current research and personal experience as a social worker, Azzi-Lessing (Wheelock College) brings together knowledge from across a variety of disciplines to explain the disastrous effects of poverty on the poorest children in the US. The author spends much of the book dismantling racist and classist misperceptions that influence public policy against the poor. These include common beliefs such as that the poor can be punished into self-sufficiency, the government already does too much to help, safety nets make the poor rich, and public schools undo the damage done to the children born into the poorest conditions. Then, the author uses research to explore and clearly explain how extreme poverty harms children, including irreparable lifelong injuries to their physical and mental health. Finally, citing the successes achieved in Great Britain after its government implemented a comprehensive anti-poverty campaign, Azzi-Lessing outlines a systematic plan to end child poverty and help poor families succeed. This book is well researched, readable, and exceptionally well timed, explaining how and why extreme poverty destroys the lives of poor children in the US while offering hope for a solution.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Davis (political science, Temple) makes a substantial contribution to discussions about gender identity. He explores how mainstream transgender activism focuses more on making it easier to change administrative sex markers and less how the current, arbitrary paradigm harms everyone. Davis makes a compelling case that "all of us would be better off in a society with dramatically fewer sex-classification policies." From examining sex markers on government documentation, to sex-segregated restrooms, to single-sex college admissions in the US, to sex-segregated athletics, Davis invites readers to see how removing sex identity markers can benefit "everyone, no matter their sex identity." The book draws strength from the powerful anecdotes Davis selects to elucidate the arguments he substantiates in each chapter, allowing for readers with gender studies backgrounds to reflect on a new approach to these conversations and also for new readers to gain additional context. The author brilliantly grounds abstract concepts in real human experiences in each chapter. This book is a rare example of a text that speaks fluently to experts and novices alike. Indispensable for all libraries and readership levels.Summing Up: Essential. All public and academic collections.

Sociologist Stuart (Univ. of Chicago) straddles the gap between academic rigor and reader engagement with this impressive urban ethnography. He not only tells the everyday story of the urban poor of LA's Skid Row, he also tells the ideological story of the men and women who police them. This important book represents a detailed and nuanced account of urban policing in a cultural and political environment where the debate has mostly become stagnant and binary. The author maintains an impressively balanced and objective approach throughout the narrative. In addition to fascinating insights into life on Skid Row, Stuart provides an engaging example of ethnographic research, including an approachable methodological appendix. An excellent addition to library collections on social problems, policing, or research methods.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

This extraordinary book analyzes changing state-level policies toward drugs, welfare, and incarceration in the 1970s in the US, revealing connections between welfare and imprisonment as institutions of social regulation. Historian Kohler-Hausmann (Cornell) neatly organizes her book in three sections, one on each topic. Within each section there are two chapters, one discussing the development of "the problem," and a second analyzing the ways of "getting tough" in response. A selective rather than exhaustive history, the volume highlights a handful of key battles in California, New York, and Illinois over the role and meaning of state intervention. This is a state-centered history that traces the impacts of discourses and political culture on policy. Drawing on statements and letters from officials, activists, prisoners, welfare recipients, and concerned citizens, Kohler-Hausmann illuminates the often contradictory and always contingent dialogues through which "tough" policies were legitimized and enacted. The book is based on her dissertation, and although her analysis is theoretically sophisticated, the inclusion of so many voices leads to a lively and engaging read.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Pfaff (Fordham Law School) would like to see reform of mass incarceration, but he argues that the "standard story" of the prison buildup has some misconceptions, and that reform built on them will be inadequate and frustrating. Pfaff's notion of the "standard story" for mass incarceration includes the drug war, prisoners serving longer sentences, and private prisons. While not entirely rejecting the "standard story," he argues that prosecutors were the important driver for increasing mass incarceration, especially when crime and arrest rates were falling. Prosecutors are understudied, and no reform legislation has tried to curtail their behavior, unlike police stop-and-frisk and sentencing reform. Pfaff presents a great deal of data in support of his arguments, and his preferred method is to get into the data from states and 3,144 counties to find representative patterns. Consequently, every reader will find a place to disagree with his data, but they will also encounter a well-argued reality check on their beliefs. While at times the argument is overly nuanced, this book is ultimately an original, data-rich, and thought-provoking contribution to the literature that is well worth the reader's time.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

In this important work, Vegh Weis (NYU) does a brilliant and accessible job of applying Marxist theory to modern criminality. She establishes the phrase "criminal selectivity" to encompass the inequality that is inherent in Western systems of justice, arising from race, gender, nationality, and, especially, the class implications of each. Vegh Weis organizes the chronology of Western criminal selectivity parallel to significant changes in socioeconomic structure, beginning with "original selectivity" (late 15th to 18th century), "disciplining selectivity" (late 18th to 20th century), and "bulimic selectivity" (late 20th century to the present). She begins her inquiry in Europe, then expands it to include and shift emphasis to the US as the country developed into an eclipsing Western world power. In each chapter, the author establishes the period in context, examines the premises of under- and overcriminalization, and applies a critical lens to how acts are defined as criminal, society's response to those acts, and the inequalities that arise in the application of sanctions. Throughout this work, Vegh Weis positions her inquiry in critical social theory that considers crime in its socioeconomic context.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

As the editor states in the preface, this timely text is intended to supplement the existing literature on the use of force by police, which is horribly dated and often skewed. Palmiotto (Wichita State Univ.) has done an impressive job as both editor and contributor. His first three chapters and conclusion provide an excellent overview of the nature and scope of the problem, and the contributors offer a wide array of perspectives that give readers several different vantage points from which to view the issue--the major strength of this book. The law enforcement perspective is well represented, but this book (unlike many of its predecessors) considers many facets of the issue from both social scientific and legalistic perspectives. The text is written in a concise and accessible style that is well organized and without unnecessary filler, making it a good choice for both graduate and undergraduate collections.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.