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Acknowledgments This book grew out of my years working in a number of government positions in New York City, as well as the last several years doing research and teaching at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In many ways, my experience as a Ph.D. student at the Graduate Center of the City of New York over twenty years ago began to shape my thinking about criminal justice and criminology. My dissertation adviser, Edward Sagarin, who passed away many years ago, was fervent about making me question and examine strongly held and supposedly commonsense beliefs, my own as well as others’. Most of the things that liberals and conservatives believe about crime were wrong, Ed would always say, and he pushed me relentlessly to justify my positions. My thinking about crime and corrections policy has gone through a number of metamorphoses as I moved from government jobs in the budget office to Probation and then Correction Commissioner. The last few years in academia have added another dimension to my thinking about issues of crime and public policy. It has been difficult, at times, to reconcile my recent, more contemplative academic experience with that of my former life as a government official. In my jobs at Probation and Correction, there was an almost irresistible urge simply to try to make it through the day without a disaster, never mind to try to effect some long-term structural change. Thankfully, the last several years have given me the opportunity to remain involved in helping policy makers, and frankly myself, try to reconcile theory, practice, and politics. Along the way, I have benefited greatly from my colleagues (and even bosses) in government and community-based organizations. Ed Koch, David Dinkins, and Rudy Giuliani all allowed me to work in their administrations, and I learned much from each of them. Mindy Tarlow and Katie Lapp, my colleagues in government for more years than any of us want to admit, have always been a source of friendship and support, and their years of expertise (lots of years) have made this book ix better than it otherwise would have been. Paul Dickstein and Harvey Spector, both of the Office of Management and Budget, were wacky enough to hire a sociology Ph.D. to oversee the city’s criminal justice budgets, and I learned from each of them every day. At Probation, Alfred Siegel was both a friend and colleague and a constant source of knowledge about government, criminal justice, and good restaurants. At Correction, Deputy Commissioners Gary Lanigan and Bernie Kerik were likewise great colleagues and friends, whose vastly different experiences always made my job easier. Despite all my years at Correction and the last several spent studying prison policy, I still don’t know what happened in those meetings between Bernie, who has gone on to bigger and better things, and the Deputy Correction Chiefs who worked for us. I do know the more meetings he had, the more those Chiefs looked a little older, and the more overtime went down. Marc Shaw, the First Deputy Mayor in New York City, has been a great friend and sounding board for a host of issues over the years, and though he’ll be horrified by even this small mention, it’s better than being the subject of a Letterman top-ten list. My numerous conversations with Marty Horn about corrections, probation, and parole, things he knows quite a bit about, have sharpened my thinking over the last several years as well. To all those at the Vera Institute of Justice with whom I’ve worked over the years, thanks for your warm friendship and advice; especially to Chris Stone—now a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government —Nick Turner, and Dan Wilhelm. Likewise to Joel Copperman, Liz Gaines, Bob Gangi, Michael Smith, Richard Girgenti, Glenn Goord, Leslie Crocker Snyder, Joseph Gubbay, Judy Greene, Jeremy Travis, Jerry McElroy, and Michael Thompson; I’ve learned so much from you all. Timothy Hughes at BJS was generous with his time as well as providing valuable data. To Susan Tucker, Eric Cadora, and Helena Huang (now at the JEHT Foundation) of the Open Society Institute, thank you not only for your generosity in awarding me a fellowship that allowed me to take some time off from teaching to travel around the country, talking to policy makers of various stripes...

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