The Book Prize Index

Crime and Punishment in America

Elliott Currie

Argues that a policy of mass incarceration is ineffective and that prison expenditures could have greater impact on criminal violence if spent on prevention and rehabilitation programs.

True Crime & JusticeTrue Crime & Justice · high confidenceTrue Crime & Justice81 signalsLlm Classifier: True Crime & Justice -> True Crime & JusticeGoogle Books: Law -> True Crime & JusticeKeyword Classifier: Politics & Government -> Politics & GovernmentCrime, Policing & ViolencePrisons & IncarcerationCourts & Trials

Award History

0 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Pulitzer Prize in General NonfictionMajor1999FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    Mass incarceration is ineffective, and criminal-violence outcomes would improve more if prison expenditures were redirected to prevention and rehabilitation programs.

    Model confidence 86%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    33 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 60%.