Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- 1: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics -- Culture, Politics, and the Construction of Social Problems -- The Changing Nature of Public Discourse on Crime -- Crime, Drugs, and the Reconstruction of the State -- The Organization of the Book -- 2: Setting the Public Agenda -- Evaluating the Democracy-at-Work Thesis -- Crime, Drugs, and Public Concern -- The Importance of Political Initiative -- Risk, Concern, Fear, and Support for Punitive Policies -- Crime, Drugs, and the Politics of Representation -- 3: Creating the Crime Issue -- Crime Control in American History -- The Politics of Protest -- The Crime Issue in National Politics -- Crime, Poverty, and Welfare -- Welfare as a Cause of Crime -- The Liberal Response -- The Politics of "Law and Order" and the Elections of 1968 -- The Federalist Dilemma -- The Discourse of Law and Order in Historical Context -- Partisan Dealignment and the Southern Strategy -- The New Right -- 4: From Crime to Drugs-and Back Again -- Creating the Dangerous Classes -- Poverty, Welfare, and the Revival of the Crime Issue -- Crime and Human Nature -- Crime and the Welfare State -- From Crime to Drugs -- Public Opinion and the War on Drugs -- The Escalation of the War on Drugs -- Return of the Crime Issue -- 5: Crime and Drugs in the News -- The State, The Media, and the Social Construction of Reality -- The Transformation of Electoral Politics -- Framing Crime and Drugs -- Identifying the Crime and Drug Issue Packages -- Crime Issue Packages -- Drug Issue Packages -- Measuring Package Prominence and Sponsorship -- Crime and Drug Issue Frames in the News -- Newspaper Coverage of the Crime Issue -- The Drug Issue in Television News -- Media Coverage and the Political Process -- 6: Crime and Punishment in American Political Culture.

American Beliefs about Crime and Punishment -- Themes and Resources in American Political Culture -- Individualism in American Political Culture -- Morality, Family, and Authority in American Political Culture -- The Fear of Crime -- Race, Crime, and Punishment -- Opposition to Racial Reform and Punitive Attitudes Toward Crime -- Race, Crime, and the Emerging Party Alignment -- Understanding the Growing Significance of Race -- Public Opinion in the American Political System -- 7: Institutionalizing Law and Order -- The Federalization of Crime Control -- Drugs and the Federalization of Crime Control in the 1980s -- Asset Forfeiture and the Enforcement of the Law -- Federal Financial Support for State and Local Crime Control -- Federal Sentencing Guidelines -- Consequences of the Federalization of Crime Control -- The Penal-Industrial Complex -- Law Enforcement as Political Lobby -- Correctional Agencies as Political Lobby -- Privatization, Prisons, and Profit -- Developments in the Field of Penology -- The Decline of Rehabilitation and the Return of Retribution -- The New Penology -- 8: Reconceptualizing the Crime Problem -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.