The war on drugs, begun in the Reagan Administration and presently continuing unabated, has resulted in an explosion in the American prison population. Whether a desired effect of the war or not, this increase has been accounted for by a severely disproportionate number of African-American males. Jerome Miller demonstrates in Search and Destroy that an African-American male between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five has an inordinate likelihood of encountering the criminal justice system at some point during those years. In a wide-ranging survey of blacks and the justice system, Miller notes the presence of bias among police officers, probation officers, courts, and even social scientists whose data form the basis for many policies and social workers whose responsibility is allegedly to members of the underclass.

Winner of the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award of the Racial and Ethnic Minorities Section of the American Sociological Society and winner of the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Crime and Juvenile Delinquency Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems

Winner of the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Crime and Juvenile Delinquency Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

"With this tightly argued and methodologically sound volume, Miller, a criminal justice expert from the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, will make readers think about some widespread social assumptions associating crime and African American men....All in all, this serves as one of the most important and clear-eyed challenges to date to the linking of crime and race and to the entire conservative anti-welfare, hard-on-crime agenda." Publishers Weekly

"Jerry Miller's Search and Destroy is a riveting and important exploration into the criminal justice system in America today and its impact on young African American males. Everybody should read it and decide how to devote more energy to keeping our young men out of the criminal justice system. Something is wrong with the values of a nation that would rather spend far more to lock up children than spend far less to give them a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life." Marian Wright Edelman, President, The Children's Defense Fund and author of The Measure of Our Successes: A Letter to My Children and Yours

"This book constitutes a powerful warning for all of us. Jerry Miller has spent a lifetime understanding our criminal justic system. He has worked to make it more progressive and more just. He has watched as it turned into a system of segregation and control for many Americans of color. That is the story told here in devastating detail. If we are truly know what we have become as a society we have to face the story told between the covers of this book." Bill Kovach, Nieman Foundation, Harvard University

"With this tightly argued and methodologically sound volume, Miller, a criminal justice expert from the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, will make readers think about some widespread social assumptions associating crime and African American men....All in all, this serves as one of the most important and clear-eyed challenges to date to the linking of crime and race and to the entire conservative anti-welfare, hard-on-crime agenda." Publishers Weekly

"In his lively, intelligent book, Miller concludes that society is using the criminal justice system as a means to control the underclass, and he voices concern for the future if this trend continues." Booklist

"This book is an outstanding resource for anyone who wants to understand the actual operation of the criminal justice system and its effects on African-American men..." MultiCultural Review

"This book is an outstanding resource for anyone who wants to understand the actual operation of the criminal justice system and its effects on African-American men..." MultiCultural Review

"Jerome Miller's level-headed, refreshingly rigorous analysis of all the data at hand goes a long way to prove what enlightened commentators have been saying for a long time: Crime statistics are manipulated by conservative politicians and pundits to validate their quite wrong-headed `get tough' approach to law and order; hars punishment does not deter crime, but it does guarantee continual expansion of the prison population, off of which the interest groups that make up the prison-industrial complex profit, and people of color are the big losers in the accelerating imprisonment binge. Miller covers much ground in teh process of proving his thesis." Terry A. Kupers, Men & Masculinities

"The importance of Jerome Miller's Search and Destroy grows with each passing day.... Its charges are recent, and are based on fresh evidence. Miller speaks with passion, intensity, and wisdom based on over 30 years experience with actual participants in the justice system...." Wayne N. Renke, Alberta Law Review