Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America

The politics and policies that led to America's expansion of the penal system and reduction of welfare programs

In 1970s America, politicians began "getting tough" on drugs, crime, and welfare. These campaigns helped expand the nation's penal system, discredit welfare programs, and cast blame for the era's social upheaval on racialized deviants that the state was not accountable to serve or represent. Getting Tough sheds light on how this unprecedented growth of the penal system and the evi...