Crime in America features selections from a series of six books Paul Brakke wrote on what’s wrong with the criminal justice system and how to fix it. These books deal with the police, courts, and prisons, and consider of some of the crises now facing American society due to illegal immigration, the opioid crisis, and the growing divide between racial, ethnic, rural-urban, and income groups. This book summarizes the critical insights of these other books in order to reach the widest possible audience, because one of Brakke’s reasons for writing this book is to inspire real change. 

The book is organized into five sections. Part I deals with crime, who commits it, and the police as our first line of defense. Part II deals with punishment and its consequences, including the swamped criminal justice system, the positive and negative results of incarceration, and the collateral damage to the families of those incarcerated. Suggested remedies are scattered throughout these first two sections. Then, Part III concentrates on specific solutions, emphasizing reducing the return of ex-cons to prison and the length of prison sentences. Part IV concentrates on our drug plague, and Part V deals with divisions in the nation, some raised in previous sections, that must be healed to make America great again.