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White Collar Crime
America is in the grips of a Cold War, and a mounting red scare uses the federal criminal justice system to target many Americans. The country's political left loses its base as Stalin's brutality is revealed and that, combined with red-baiting, leaves them in shambles. The automobile becomes a permanent cultural fixture‹and traffic laws follow suit. The crimes of the wealthy are finally brought to the public's attention, and the category of white-collar crime is born. During this era, sociology becomes firmly entrenched, and its distinct analytical approach in conjunction with psychology is applied to a variety of targets. Steps are taken to make criminal justice more humane. Corporal punishment is no longer an option. The last officially sanctioned flogging takes place on June 16, 1952, in Delaware. Big Houses give way to correctional institutions, where multiple programs and a myriad of specialists are available to treat inmates. In 1950, shortly before the Rosenbergs are arrested, the Korean War begins. It ends in 1953, the year Earl Warren becomes Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The landmark Brown v. Board of Education opinion, striking down over half a century of Jim Crow laws, is just the first of the changes that will be instituted by the Warren court. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, sparked by Rosa Parks's arrest, marks the emergence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a leader in the Civil Rights movement. The stage is set for the extraordinary decade to come. |