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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Tag: Surveillance

Alice Goffman’s “On the Run”

Financial Hazards of a Fugitive Life, By Tyler Cowen, June 1, 2014, New York Times: ” ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century,’ Thomas Piketty’s new book, has received a great deal of attention. But we shouldn’t neglect another important new book on income inequality, from a much different perspective. Titled “On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City,” and written by Alice Goffman, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, it offers a fascinating and disturbing portrait of the economic constraints and incentives faced by a large subset of Americans: those who are hiding from the law. You may think of being on the run as a quandary for only a small group of recalcitrant, hardened criminals. But in her study of one Philadelphia neighborhood, Professor Goffman shows that it is a common way of life for many nonviolent Americans. . .”