“How not to respond to the rising murder rate”, Thomas P. Abt, New York Times, September 26, 2017.  The article reviews the recent data  and the likely read from different sides of the debate on causes and corrections.  A caution is offered:

“We need a new national dialogue on crime, one that is less about ideology and more about evidence. The current conversation oversimplifies complex issues, emphasizes blame over responsibility, and encourages deadlock instead of progress. We need to move from argument winning to problem solving, recognizing that all these issues are related to one another, and especially to the violence that needlessly claims so many lives.”

Additional resources

arranged alphabetically by author

Prison life in popular culture: from the Big House to Orange is the New Black, by Dawn K. Cecil, 2015. Provides a detailed review of the sources of prison imagery, with especially detailed coverage of the history of prison films and documentaries, describing types such as historical, investigative, deterrence-based, treatment- based, and sensational.  The author notes that “…the further a subject is removed from the public eye, the more influential images become in shaping people’s perspectives.”(p7)

“A Proper Regard for the Unfortunates:: Origins of the Jail System in Westchester County, N. Y.,” Anthony J. Czarnecki, Westchester County Correction Dept Chief of Staff (ret.)., Westchester Historian, 2006.

Conscience and Convenience: the asylum and its alternatives in progressive America, David J. Rothman, Rev. ed. 2002. Originally published 1980, covering incarceration in America 1900-1965; rev. edition provides two additional chapters on mental health.