NCJ Number
187224
Journal
Punishment & Society Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2001 Pages: 183-188
Editor(s)
David Garland
Date Published
January 2001
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article calls attention to the tendency of liberal criminologists to mix facts and values when assessing sentencing policies, argues that an objective methodology for ranking countries with respect to sentencing severity has yet to be developed, and recommends caution and clarification when making moral criticisms of U.S. sentencing policies and imprisonment rates.
Abstract
The comments are based on research on imprisonment rates in the United States and the new politics of criminal punishment and on research on changing public sensibilities toward crime and penal policies. The comments dealing with the research on imprisonment rates in the United States pertain to methodological aspects of the research and the validity of the conclusions. The comments dealing with the research on public sensibilities toward crime concern the value-based approach of the researcher and his view as a legal penologist that current crime policies are cruel and excessive. The article points out that both researchers believe too many people are in prison and identifies some of the difficulties in obtaining accurate data for research studies. 9 references and 3 notes