NCJ Number
187222
Journal
Punishment & Society Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2001 Pages: 161-166
Editor(s)
David Garland
Date Published
January 2001
Length
6 pages
Annotation
While the imprisonment rate in the United States has been sharply increasing for more than 25 years, the 7 years between 1993 and 2000 present a special set of conditions because crime rates were decreasing while imprisonment rates continued to rise.
Abstract
The author indicates the increase in the imprisonment rate after 1991 was equal to the total imprisonment rate in the United States in 1981 and links the recent increase in the imprisonment rate to a new politics of penal severity that assumes any increase in pain for criminal offenders produces a corresponding benefit to crime victims. He contends much of the mandatory punishment legislation during the 1993-2000 period is the result of distrust of government which increases the level of government intervention. Further, the author believes the new political landscape will be a very important restraint on the capacity to lower the incarceration rate in the foreseeable future. Three specific characteristics of the new political landscape are described: (1) loose linkage between symbolic and operational impacts of criminal laws; (2) assumption that criminals and crime victims are engaged in a zero sum contest; and (3) paradoxical politics of distrust of government. Political limits on "decarceration" are discussed. 2 references