How does a Black man in Austin get sent to prison on a 70-year sentence for stealing a tuna sandwich, likely costing Texas taxpayers roughly a million dollars? In America, your liberty--or even your life--may be forfeit not simply because of what you do, but where you do it. If the same man had run off with a lobster roll from a lunch counter in Maine it's unlikely that he'd be spending the rest of his life behind bars.

The U.S. incarcerates more people than any other industrial democracy in the world. We have more ex-prisoners than the entire population of Ireland, and more people with a felony record than the populations of Denmark, Norway, New Zealand and Liberia combined. Why did the United States become the world's biggest jailer? And, just as importantly, what has it done to us? What are the costs--socially, economically, and politically--of having the world's largest population of ex-prisoners? And what can we do about it?
In this landmark book, Kevin B. Smith explains that the United States became the world's biggest jailer because politicians wanted to do something about a very real problem with violent crime. That effort was accelerated by a variety of partisan and socio-demographic trends that started to significantly reshape the political environment in the 1980s and 1990s. The force of those trends varied from state to state, but ultimately led to not just historically unprecedented levels of incarceration, but equally unprecedented numbers of ex-prisoners. Serving time behind bars is now a normalized social experience--it affects a majority of Americans directly or indirectly. There is a clear price, the jailer's reckoning, to be paid for this. As Smith shows, it is a society with declining levels of civic cohesion, reduced economic prospects, and less political engagement. Mass incarceration turns out to be something of a hidden bomb, a social explosion that inflicts enormous civic collateral damage on the entire country, and we must all do something about it.

Public policy is a broad and interdisciplinary area of study and research in the field tends to reflect this. Yet for those teaching and studying public policy, the disjointed nature of the field can be confusing and cumbersome. This text provides a consistent and coherent framework for uniting the field of public policy. Authors Kevin B. Smith and Christopher W. Larimer offer an organized and comprehensive overview of the core questions and concepts, major theoretical frameworks, primary methodological approaches, and key controversies and debates in each subfield of policy studies from the policy process and policy analysis to program evaluation and policy implementation.

The third edition has been updated throughout to include the latest scholarship and approaches in the field, including new and expanded coverage of behavioral economics, the narrative policy framework, Fourth Generation implementation studies, the policy regime approach, field experiments, and the debate of program versus policy implementation studies. Now with an appendix of sample comprehensive exam questions, The Public Policy Theory Primer remains an indispensable text for the systematic study of public policy.

Public policy is a broad and interdisciplinary area of study and research in the field tends to reflect this. Yet for those teaching and studying public policy, the disjointed nature of the field can be confusing and cumbersome. This text provides a consistent and coherent framework for uniting the field of public policy. Authors Kevin B. Smith and Christopher W. Larimer offer an organized and comprehensive overview of the core questions and concepts, major theoretical frameworks, primary methodological approaches, and key controversies and debates in each subfield of policy studies from the policy process and policy analysis to program evaluation and policy implementation.

The third edition has been updated throughout to include the latest scholarship and approaches in the field, including new and expanded coverage of behavioral economics, the narrative policy framework, Fourth Generation implementation studies, the policy regime approach, field experiments, and the debate of program versus policy implementation studies. Now with an appendix of sample comprehensive exam questions, The Public Policy Theory Primer remains an indispensable text for the systematic study of public policy.

Explores the ideological underpinnings of school choice and other market-based education reforms.

Advocates of market-based education reforms (including such policies as choice, charters, vouchers, and outright privatization) argue that they represent ready solutions to clearly defined problems. Critics of market models, on the other hand, argue that these reforms misperceive the purposes of public education and threaten its democratic ethos. This book explores both the promises and pitfalls of market forces-their potential to improve the quality of public education and their compatibility with its republican justifications. Smith argues that although market models of education are not without utilitarian merit, their potential to alter the social-democratic purposes of education is seriously underestimated. He supports this claim with a series of sophisticated analyses of the key assumptions underlying these models, and by examining the normative elements of theory and methodology that can-and often do-skew empirical policy analysis toward market preferences. He concludes that market reforms are not just a ready means to effectively address the problems of public schooling but rather represent a clear attempt to ideologically redefine its ends.

During the 1940s and 1950s Glenn R. Davis was one of the brightest stars of the Republican Party. In the halls of Congress he was known as The Iron Man because of his unwillingness to make compromises. His last ten years in office were spent in an unsuccessful attempt to halt Congress' increasing appetite for deficit spending. This biography traces Davis' career from a childhood spent in rural poverty to combat in the Pacific to the White House the night Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. Davis' life offers a unique insight into the development of the House of Representatives over four decades and how its members wielded power. His story offers a unique glimpse of the Nixon and Ford administrations, the careers of many of the best known names of the Republican Party, and the development of post-war politics in Wisconsin. Most importantly, Davis' experiences highlight Congress' growing inability to restrain spending. At a time when Congress is trying to find its way back to the path of fiscal responsibility, this book could provide a useful roadmap. Co-published with the Glenn Davis Charitable Foundation.

This fascinating issue of The ANNALS draws on the recent advancements in biological insights and applies them to political science. Pulling from a range of topics - including the role of personality traits in political decisions; personal temperament and social behavior; and how neuroendocrine mechanisms (stress-coping strategies) and social dominance influence leadership potential - this issue calls for the cooperation between political scientists and life scientists.

Most of the compelling articles included in the collection rely on original and empirical findings. Students and researchers will find this special issue a unique and inspiring perspective on applying the remarkable techniques developed in neuroscience, experimental economics, computer simulations, psychophysiology, behavioral genetics, and molecular biology to future political science research projects.

Compelling arguments, supported by both anecdotal and empirical evidence to convince readers that school choice does nothing to improve the quality of education. ... Solidly researched and written, Smith's and Meier's effort should sway those still undecided on the issue. -- Publishers Weekly

Compelling arguments, supported by both anecdotal and empirical evidence to convince readers that school choice does nothing to improve the quality of education. ... Solidly researched and written, Smith's and Meier's effort should sway those still undecided on the issue. -- Publishers Weekly