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The Politics of Crime Prevention
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For decades, advocates of racial justice called for financial investment into communities that suffer from poverty, unemployment, and crime—the legacies of segregation and other discriminatory policies. Since at least the 1970s, policymakers consistently prioritize investing in police and punishment to respond to crime instead of investing in communities to prevent crime in the first place. Politicians argue that citizens demand that they be “tough on crime.” In The Politics of Crime Prevention, Kevin Wozniak argues that policymakers fundamentally underestimate public support for community investment. Drawing on focus groups and a national survey of White and Black Americans, Wozniak demonstrates that most people believe social environments cause crime and support policies to address social problems at the neighborhood level. When asked to propose their own crime prevention budgets, most participants prioritized investments into community institutions or balanced their funding between communities and the criminal justice system. Wozniak examines the influence of racism and explores how changing the way politicians talk about communities (also known as “framing”) affects public investment preferences. He argues that politicians have more latitude to advocate for community investment than they have long assumed and that such advocacy will not cost them electoral support. The Politics of Crime Prevention calls for a fundamental reinterpretation of the politics of crime, punishment, and social policy in the United States.
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