The rich get richer and the poor get prison: Summary and Discussion

C OL LA PS E
     The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison by Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton talked
about ideology, class  and the criminal justice system in the United States of America. The book
is about social inequality, social injustice, and the Marxian critique of our criminal justice system.
Neiman and Leighton demonstrated that the criminal justice system most of the time played in
upper-class citizen’s favor. Rich people are most likely to get away with crimes and poor people
are getting arrested, charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison for the same crimes. Both
authors conducted a study and found “boys from the lowest socio-economic class committed
street crimes at a rate 1.5 times higher than boys in the highest socioeconomic class; however,
boys from the lowest class were arrested five times as often as those in the highest class”
(Reiman, p115).
     In chapter 1,  Reiman discusses crime control in America as it is broken down into four
themes. The goal of the author is to show the rich get richer while the poor get prison. He
explains this through comparing The United States high crime rates to those of European
countries and Canada. The author uses evidence to show that states or cities that did not
implement changes such as tough on crime laws saw a decline in crimes. The second theme
introducing the chapter was the excuses for a high crime rate. Here the author argues against the
validity of all four excuses introduced in the chapter. For example, one of the four excuses were,
we are too soft and as a result we have higher crime rate. The author argues against by saying that
the United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. In the past 30 years we
have seen an increase use of mandatory and harsher sentences.  The third theme that this chapter
went into was the sources of the crimes. Here the author discusses topics such as, inequality, the
conditions of prisons and the over use of them, guns and how easy it is to get them and the
current drug policy. Lastly, Pyrrhic Defeat was the last theme discussed by the author in the
chapter.  This refers to the idea that those people who came up with the system benefit from the
way that it currently works.  The author discussed call the more crime there is in the streets the
more wealth corporate America accumulates. 
     Chapter 2 discusses how what we see as dangerous and even a crime is socially created. He
touches up on how crime is a result of policy making.  This chapter brings up points like the
carnival mirror and the reality of crime. It is discussed how street crimes get magnified while
white-collar crimes become smaller. This happens through the image that is created by people in
the criminal justice system to create what we see today as a crime. Policymakers are the creators
of what is considered a crime.
     In chapter 3, the author discussed how that the way that the criminal justice system separates
the wealthy from the poor is that the poor are more likely to be arrested, more likely to be
charged, more likely to be convicted of a crime and more likely to be sentenced to longer prison
sentences. The discussion involves characteristics of inmates including the educational level in
social economic status class that they belong to. This exposes that not only do poor people
affected the most but that those poor people are African Americans.
     In chapter 4, Reiman discusses the ideology, or message that our criminal justice system
conveys that individual criminals bear full responsibility, while inequality and other social
conditions that contribute to crime are rendered invisible in the discussions. Reiman also
addresses the role of ideology in creating and maintaining this continued failure. Reiman argues
that focusing on individual wrongdoers allows us to address only half of the problem of justice:
whether the individual has fulfilled their obligation to society, but not whether society has
fulfilled its obligation to the society.
     Reiman concludes his argument with the assertion that a criminal justice system is a just
system only if it equally protects the interests and rights of all and that is equally punishes all who
violate these rights or endanger these interests.  When it does not, the system is criminal; the
biased use of coercive power police, courts, prisons is violence.  Reiman argues that the criminal
justice system violates its own morally justifying ideas of equal protection and fairness.  This
chapter points out several strategies that must be put in place if our system is to fulfill the goals of
protecting society and promoting justice.

References
The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice: Eleventh
Edition
Reiman, J. H. (2007). The rich get richer and the poor get prison: Ideology, class, and criminal
justice. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Discussion Questions
1: According to the book , do you think the criminal justice system racist? If so, what evidence
would establish or refute your view? 
2: What problems are posed by the privatization of prisons and the criminal justice industrial
complex?