Foundational and renowned study of how politicians and others use crime rates -- and most of all the public perception of street crime, whether or not it is accurate -- for their own purposes. Dr. Scheingold also provides a theoretical and historical basis for his views. The follow-up to the landmark The Politics of Rights, this book is both supported in research and accessible and interesting to readers everywhere. - Features a new Foreword by Berkeley law professor Malcolm M. Feeley. A work that is both "timely and timeless, " writes Feeley, it "is important for what it says -- and how it says it -- about American crime and crime policy, as well as American political culture. It speaks truth to power today as much as it did when it was first published." As recently noted by Amherst College's Austin Sarat, Scheingold "was quite simply one of the world's leading commentators on law and politics." - This is the new clothbound edition of a classic work of law and society, republished in this format in 2016 from the Quid Pro Books paperback reprint edition of 2010.