![handle is hein.cow/anamacp0494 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE
[Folly] is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own inter-
ests. . . . In its first stage, mental standstill fixes the principles and boundaries
governing a political problem. In the second stage, when dissonances and failing
function begin to appear, the initial principles rigidify. . . . Rigidifying leads to
increase of investment and the need to protect egos; policy founded upon error
multiplies, never retreats. . . . In the third stage, pursuit of failure enlarges the
damages until it causes the fall of Troy, the defection from the Papacy [as during the
Protestant Reformation], the loss of a Trans-Atlantic empire [as in the case of
George III, and] the classic humiliation in Vietnam.1
Since the late 1960s, serious crime in the United States has doubled and levels of
fear have increased. American crime and fear are by far the highest in the
industrialized world.2
In terms of policy, the magnitude of crime and fear over the last two decades
suggests the march of folly. During this time, the federal government has made
hardware fashionable. Its grants have included money for several tanks to one
police department and for a submarine to another. Crime did not go down-all that
went down was the federal agency making the grants.3
Deterrence was fashionable for a while, but it has been demonstrated that, for the
most part, more and more police or longer and longer sentences do not result in less
and less crime.4
If one believes that society should be protected from serious offenders and that
punishment is a valid reason for incarceration, the notion of incapacitation-taking
criminals off the street to prevent them from committing more crimes-seems to be
common sense. Yet careful research on incapacitation, another popular policy of
recent years, shows that the potential reduction in serious crime is disturbingly
small, especially when balanced against the social and economic costs of pursuing
this strategy strenuously enough to make much difference to public safety.5
The United States already has the highest rates of imprisonment in the
industrialized world, with the possible exceptions of South Africa and the Soviet
Union. At current rates, every fifth black man in America will spend some time in a
state or federal prison, with the proportion much higher for specific inner-city
communities.6 It has been estimated that, in order to have any significant effect on
the rate of serious crime-for example, to reduce it by 20 percent-we would have
to triple the prison population. The cost would be about $70 billion in new
construction, American prisons being filled to capacity, and-conservatively, at
present prices-$14 billion in new annual operating costs. The $70 billion is well
1. Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), p. 383.
2. Lynn A. Curtis, ed., American Violence and Public Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1985).
3. Ibid.
4. Elliot Currie, Confronting Crime (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985).
5. Ibid., p. 88.
6. Ibid., p. 91.
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