Criminality in Context: The Psychological Foundations of Criminal Justice Reform
(Psychology, Crime, and Justice)
American Psychological Association, 2020

Summary: In this groundbreaking book that is built on decades of work on the front lines of the criminal justice system, expert psychologist Craig Haney provides a blueprint for fundamental reform by changing our understanding of who commits crime and why. Based on a comprehensive review and analysis of psychological research, Haney offers a carefully constructed framework for enhancing legal fairness and reducing crime through proactive prevention instead of reactive punishment. Haney meticulously reviews evidence documenting the ways in which social history, institutional experiences, and present circumstances powerfully shape a person’s life course, with a special focus on the role of social, economic, and racial injustice in crime causation. The author thus effectively debunks the “crime master narrative”—the widespread myth that criminality is a product of free and autonomous “bad” choices—an increasingly anachronistic view that cannot bear the weight of contemporary psychological data and theory. This is a must-read for understanding the origins of criminal behavior and developing a fair and effective system to address them.

Praise: “Haney shows that the criminal justice system’s responses to crime remain driven by prejudice and guided by simplistic preconceptions. Transcending long-standing criminological turf wars and obdurate disciplinary boundaries, his landmark book nicely liberates our understanding by integrating available knowledge, thus enabling us to consider humane and appropriate public policy options.”
—Hans Toch, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, State University of New York