The Crime of Punishment

Criminal Justice Reformation Advocacy Organization to Re-Publish Original Work of Dr. Karl Menninger

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The greatest threat to our nation may lie within, in our own prisons. People in the prison system consume more public resources from taxpayers per annum than it would take to fund a Harvard education. Over 96 percent of those in prison or jail return to their communities. What happens to our communities to which these people return hardened by their prison experience? Criminal justice policies bent on punishment and not rehabilitation have created a time bomb.

Originally published in 1966, Dr. Karl Menninger’s landmark teachings addressed the critical issue of crime in America and the methods used to punish criminals. Profoundly relevant to the current criminal justice crisis, The Crime of Punishment (published by AuthorHouse) is now being re-published by NewLeaf-NewLife, Inc. and its sister organization, Citizens for Effective Justice, with the permission of the Kansas Historical Society.

In the 1960s, Dr. Menninger made a very persuasive case for a therapeutic paradigm in the criminal justice system. Almost 40 years later, Menninger’s ideas may be even more relevant since the nation has tried the paradigm of punishment for more than a generation without success.

It is a well-known fact that relatively few offenders are caught, and most of those arrested are released. But society makes a fetish of wreaking ‘punishment’, as it is called, on an occasional captured and convicted one.

This is supposed to ‘control crime’ by deterrence. The more valid and obvious conclusion – that getting caught is thus made the unthinkable thing – is overlooked by all but the offenders. We shut our eyes likewise to the fact that the control performance is frightfully expensive and inefficient. Enough scapegoats must go through the mill to keep the legend of punitive ‘justice’ alive and to keep our jails and prisons, however futile and expensive, crowded and wretched.

- Karl Menninger

The Crime of Punishment, 1969

NewLeaf-NewLife, Inc. is a criminal justice reformation advocacy organization dedicated to transforming the American criminal justice system to bring about policies as espoused by Karl Menninger in The Crime of Punishment. One-hundred percent of proceeds earned by NewLeaf-NewLife from the sale of the book will be used in direct support of people entangled in the criminal justice “system” to open opportunities for them to rebuild their lives as productive, tax-paying citizens. For more information please visit www.citizensforeffectivejustice.org.

AuthorHouse is the premier book publisher for emerging, self-published authors. For more information, please visit www.authorhouse.com.

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