Please join us as Mark Kleiman discusses his new book, When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment.

California's long spending spree on criminal justice is running into budget reality. All over the state, in city halls and at the state Capitol, elected officials are being forced to ask whether the money they spend to fight crime--$35 billion a year, or more than $900 per person--is being used wisely to protect public safety.

Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at UCLA, says that it is not. In When Brute Force Fails, he argues that the current approach to crime,
which has yielded unprecedented levels of incarceration, has hit a dead end--fiscally, morally, and as a way to improve public safety. He shows that a new approach, involving swift and certain punishment, targeted enforcement, and intensive probation and community correction programs, can reduce both crime and punishment.

"Kleiman suggests that smarter enforcement strategies can make existing budgets go further. The important step, he says, is to view enforcement as a dynamic game in which strategically chosen deterrence policies become self-reinforcing....[I]t's a revolutionary idea."
--Robert Frank, New York Times

Lunch will be provided. Books will be available for purchase at the event.

This event is co-sponsored by the California Research Burea, the New America Foundation, and the UC Center Sacramento.