Abstract
It is now widely held, one might almost say officially held, that not only robberies, murders, and rapes but civil disorder in general arise from society’s neglect of and injustice toward the poor and the black. The Kerner Commission Report emphasized both “white racism” and the failure of society to create adequate material and social conditions as causes of riots as well as poverty and social disorganization generally. Essentially the same view was taken by the President’s Commission on Crime and Violence and more recently by the President s Commission on Campus Unrest. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark summed up the prevailing view in his best-selling book, Crime in America:
Robberies, murders, rapes, are the sports of men set at liberty from punishment and censure. JOHN LOCKE, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
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References
Ramsey Clark,Crime in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970), 67.
Edward Green, “Race, Social Status, and Criminal Arrest,”American Sociological Review35, no. 3 (June 1970): 489.
Bruno Bettelheim,The Children of the Dream(New York: Macmillan, 1969), 54–55.
Barry F. Singer, “Psychological Studies of Punishment,”California Law Review58, no. 2 (March 1970): 414.
George Sternlieb, “Hawthornism and Housing”Urban Affairs Quarterly(September 1970): 96–97.
Mancur Olson, Jr.,The Logic of Collective Action(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965).
J. S. Mill,On Utilitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Government(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1951), pp. 186–87.
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© 1985 Plenum Press, New York
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Banfield, E.C. (1985). How Many, and Who, Should Be Set at Liberty?. In: Here the People Rule. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2481-2_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2481-2_16
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