War on Crime in Vietnam’s Wake, 1969–1973

Abstract

Richard Nixon’s politics and penchant for vengeance, rising agitation in and about America’s prisons, and conflict over the Vietnam War’s legacy (especially for veterans) fuelled Nixon’s destructive, though unsteady, war on crime and its focus on drugs. The rehabilitative ideal—the belief that imprisonment might redeem criminals—came under assault from many quarters, while the Attica Prison uprising in 1971 exposed conflicting currents of punishment and redemption.