Argues that current drug policies are counterproductive and have not alleviated the nation's drug problems, and suggests that policies are used politically to label certain groups as scapegoats for American social and economic problems

The Return of the Dangerous Classes: Drug Prohibition and Policy Politics

Politics & Social Sciences

Gordon, Diana R.

Politics & Government

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

The Justice Juggernaut: Fighting Street Crime, Controlling Citizens (Crime, Law, & Deviance Series)

"Argues convincingly that the conditions that produce our exceptionally high levels of crime are not, and cannot be, significantly remedied by the machinery of surveillance, apprehension, and punishment."--New York Times Book Review 
"Gordon argues in her timely and interesting book that fear of crime has become a central feature of our nation's symbolic politics. . . . [Her] analysis is broadly historical and theoretical, invoking Foucault and Durkheim and the social construction of crime."--Contemporary Sociology 
"A sophisticated analysis of recent government attempts to control street crime."--Library Journal 
"Gordon's well-researched and profoundly explicit work raises some vexing ethical, legal, and public policy questions regarding the so-called 'get tough' philosophy in criminal justice practice over the past quarter century. . . . Should be required reading for students of criminal justice and policymakers at all levels."--Choice 
"This is an important and timely book. Professor Gordon uncovers the symbolic power and substantive hollowness of today's 'get tough' approaches to crime and charts the disturbing growth of government surveillance."--Congressman Don Edwards 
"Gordon ironically makes good use of one of the fruits of all this troubling 'netwidening': detailed, recent, good-quality, and usually national data on crime, offenders, and the activities of various elements of the criminal justice system. She skillfully weaves this data into descriptive portraits of the system in action."--Wesley G. Skogan, Political Science Quarterly

Social Sciences

Rutgers University Press

Greenport, New York, a village on the North Fork of Long Island, has become an exemplar of a little-noted national trend—immigrants spreading beyond the big coastal cities, driving much of rural population growth nationally. In Village of Immigrants, Diana R. Gordon illustrates how small-town America has been revitalized by the arrival of these immigrants in Greenport, where she lives. Greenport today boasts a population that is one-third Hispanic. Gordon contends that these immigrants have effectively saved the town’s economy by taking low-skill jobs, increasing the tax base, filling local schools, and patronizing local businesses. Greenport’s seaside beauty still attracts summer tourists, but it is only with the support of the local Latino workforce that elegant restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts are able to serve these visitors. For Gordon the picture is complex, because the wave of immigrants also presents the town with challenges to its services and institutions. Gordon’s portraits of local immigrants capture the positive and the negative, with a cast of characters ranging from a Guatemalan mother of three, including one child who is profoundly disabled, to a Colombian house painter with a successful business who cannot become licensed because he remains undocumented. Village of Immigrants weaves together these people’s stories, fears, and dreams to reveal an environment plagued by threats of deportation, debts owed to coyotes, low wages, and the other bleak realities that shape the immigrant experience—even in the charming seaport town of Greenport. A timely contribution to the national dialogue on immigration, Gordon’s book shows the pivotal role the American small town plays in the ongoing American immigrant story—as well as how this booming population is shaping and reviving rural communities.

Village of Immigrants: Latinos in an Emerging America (Rivergate Regionals Collection)

Business & Money

Economics

City Limits Barriers to Change in Urban Government

Charterhouse

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Books by Gordon, Diana R.