Book Review: Travis C. Pratt Addicted to Incarceration: Corrections Policy and the Politics of Misinformation in the United States. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2009. 179 pp. $31.95 ISBN: 978-0-7619-2832-4

• Author: Bright Sarfo
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016809356307
• Published date: 01 June 2010
• Date: 01 June 2010
• Subject Matter: Articles

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learned along the way. Even some seasoned scholars might find the book handy as a quick reference
tool while thinking of potential research questions. However, the textbook portion of each section, at
times, lacks in-depth discussion, thus leaving the reader to rely more on the scholarly articles for better
understanding. Nonetheless, I applaud Spohn and Hemmens for their contribution to an important and
necessary task of making the discipline much more accessible to beginning students.
Travis C. Pratt
Addicted to Incarceration: Corrections Policy and the Politics of Misinformation in the United States. Thousand Oaks,
CA: SAGE, 2009. 179 pp. $31.95
ISBN: 978-0-7619-2832-4
Reviewed by: Bright Sarfo, Columbia University, New York, USA
DOI: 10.1177/0734016809356307
Literary and scholastic challengers to traditional practices of the criminal justice system must do so
in preparation of counterarguments that claim that current crime control strategies are vital to pubic
safety. Those who aim at exposing existing or accepted flawed assumptions must be prepared to
address the rhetoric that places incarceration at the heart of effective crime control. In Addicted
to Incarceration, Pratt (2009) skillfully highlights the sources of propaganda that result in the con-
tinued overuse of incarceration as the main source of punishment in the United States. Pratt not only
argues against conservative beliefs regarding the fundamental effectiveness of incarceration but also
logically provides compelling arguments and evidence to reevaluate the notion that incarceration is
the most appropriate means of crime control.
Pratt’s work is broken up into three parts with a total of seven chapters and a preface detailing
material to be covered in the text. Topics covered in the chapters are (a) politics of crime control,
(b) misinformation about crime problems, (c) misinformation about public opinion, (d) misinforma-
tion about crime control, (e) social costs of...