What Americans Should Do About Crime by L Harold DeWolf

[Dr T]

What Americans Should Do About Crime by L Harold DeWolf is a little book written back in 1975. This book was only 150 pages and the topic was very interesting to me. I see the complexity of what goes into this topic and appreciate the difficulty therein. This little book did a fine job laying out various aspects of crime, some fallacies and he lists some options that he viewed as promising. The author also listed some conversation starters based on his book sections that were fun to think about. I wish there was an updated version of this book that I knew so I could pick it up to be more relevant and realistic about crime in America. This book looks into crime and possible responses to it, why the prison system isn’t working, how older populations would deal with things, various options about how to deal with crime, what ethicists and moral philosophers had to say about this topic, dealing with community as a barrier or defense to crime. He also touched on religious systems like Christianity and Judaism and would love to take that part further. In the end, I wish it was more up to date and am aware that it left me with many more questions about how we can really curb some crime. He laid out some of the violence being highly tied to social isolation which I appreciated. I’d give it a 2.75 stars out of 5 star. I still have many questions and would love to see if I could start some programs to see if we can help combat crime but it makes me wonder about that idea. I wonder what effect it would have? I don’t know if we can make strong lasting change and if so, what would have to be different. After all, we are working with sinful people. I just don’t know.