Prison Decayed: Cinematic Penal Discourse and Populism 1995–2005

The increased populist and punitive turn in criminal justice policy in the United Kingdom over recent years has led to punishment becoming politicised, harsher and more ostentatious. The role of media and popular culture discourses of prison is rarely examined in this account. Adopting a Foucauldian discourse analysis of prison films released over the past 10 years, this article explores the prison film as one important element of the discursive regime. It seeks to investigate what representational practices are at work, how they limit the meaning of prison and prisoners, and how this may contribute to debates about the nature and aim of prison in contemporary society. It argues that several discursive practices exist in cinematic representations of the incarceration that strengthen support for the use of prison. The explicit and recurring depiction of violence in most prison films over the past 10 years, while appearing to offer evidence for prison reform, does the opposite. This paper suggests that discourses around the futility and inhumanity of incarceration are scant, replaced by scenes of prison violence; rape and death appear, which appear to exist purely for the pleasure of the spectator: a generic feature of the prison film. Secondly, prisoners are largely constructed as an inhuman other: a danger to society and deserving of harsh punishment. Consequently, the discursive regime of prison in cinema over the past decade constructs prison as not only necessary, but as the only process for crime control and reduction.     

Accountability and Coercion: Is Justice Blind when It Runs for Office?

Through their power to sentence, trial judges exercise enormous authority in the criminal justice system. In 39 American states, these judges stand periodically for reelection. Do elections degrade their impartiality? We develop a dynamic theory of sentencing and electoral control. Judges discount the future value of retaining office relative to implementing preferred sentences. Voters are largely uninformed about judicial behavior, so even the outcome of a single publicized case can be decisive in their evaluations. Further, voters are more likely to perceive instances of underpunishment than overpunishment. Our theory predicts that elected judges will consequently become more punitive as standing for reelection approaches. Using sentencing data from 22,095 Pennsylvania criminal cases in the 1990s, we find strong evidence for this effect. Additional tests confirm the validity of our theory over alternatives. For the cases we examine, we attribute at least 1,818 to 2,705 years of incarceration to the electoral dynamic.     

Civic implications of restorative justice theory: Citizen participation and criminal justice policy

Restorative justice, a normative theory and reform movement emphasizing dialogue and reconciliation between victim, offender, and community, is a widespread, if experimental, part of the practice of criminal justice in the United States. This essay argues that restorative justice draws connections between civic engagement and punishment practices that distinguish it as a normative theory of criminal justice. Advocates of restorative justice expect the growth of non-punitive attitudes and the weakening of support for incarceration to emerge from a public and lay-oriented context of adjudication. The role of lay participation in achieving social change, although prominent in restorative justice critiques of mainstream criminal justice norms and practices, has not been clearly articulated in practical terms. Significant ambiguities remain regarding the degree of lay participation, scope of authority, and the focus of restorative justice forums. The essay argues that an adequate assessment of restorative justice experiments should include an analysis of their impact on public attitudes towards crime and crime control policy and not simply on their impact on the specific victims and offenders involved. The link between less incarceration and restorative justice forums is public willingness to grant them the authority to hear and sanction offenses that would ordinarily receive incarceration. Whether and how they can influence broader public attitudes, then, is a critical test of restorative justice effectiveness.     

Reducing Aboriginal Over-representation in Prison

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody attributed the high rate of Aboriginal deaths in custody to the over-representation of Aboriginal people in prison. Most analyses of this over-representation focus on the issue of systemic bias in policing, the law or the operation of the criminal justice system. The present article contends that, while discriminatory treatment of Aboriginal people by police and the court system is an historical fact, the leading current cause of Aboriginal over-representation in prison is not systemic bias but high rates of Aboriginal involvement in serious crime. We argue that efforts to reduce Aboriginal imprisonment rates through policing or criminal justice system policy have failed and will continue to fail until they succeed in reducing crime in Aboriginal communities. Future efforts to bring down Aboriginal imprisonment rates should focus on this issue.     

Race,Class, and the Development of Criminal Justice Policy1

Racial disparities in the criminal justice system are profound and well documented. A range of scholarship has examined these trends to assess the degree to which they result from biased decision making at various levels of the justice system. Also key to understanding the origin of these disparities is an analysis of the race and class determinants of criminal justice policy. This can be seen most clearly in the development of drug policy, but also in the means by which policy choices in law enforcement, prosecution, and sentencing are formulated. To the extent that crime is perceived as a “black problem,” the means by which the problem is addressed and the resulting punitiveness of the approach serve to exacerbate societal inequalities.     

Macro Implementation: Testing the Causal Paths from U.S. Macro Policy to Federal Incarceration

Policy implementation is usually studied at the micro level by testing the short‐term effects of a specific policy on the behavior of government actors and policy outcomes. This study adopts an alternative approach by examining macro implementation—the cumulative effect of aggregate public policies over time. I employ a variety of methodological techniques to test the influence of macro criminal justice policy on new admissions to federal prison via three mediators: case filings by federal prosecutors, conviction rates in federal district courts, and plea bargaining behavior. I find that cumulative Supreme Court rulings influence the incarceration rate by altering conviction rates in district courts; however, I find only mixed evidence of congressional and presidential influence. The results suggest that U.S. macro policy influences bureaucratic outputs by altering the behavior of subordinate policy implementers; however, the Supreme Court may enjoy an advantage in shaping criminal justice policy.     

The efficacy and effect of racial profiling: A mathematical simulation approach

Racial profiling—the use of race, ethnicity, or national origin by law enforcement officials to make judgments of criminal suspicion—is assessed in terms of its effect on targeted populations and on law enforcement efficiency. A mathematical simulation, comparing multiple profiling and non‐profiling scenarios, is employed. This analysis indicates that racial profiling exacerbates incarceration disparities between groups whether or not the groups differ in criminality rates, and that the long‐term effects of profiling in terms of criminal captures depend on the calibration of profiling rates to criminality rates. The highest long‐term criminal capture rates appear to occur when stop rate ratios match, or are slightly below, criminality rate ratios between groups. When the possibility of a deterrent effect is modeled, profiling appears to yield fewer criminal captures and have little or no crime reduction effect, and may even increase overall crime rates. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

The Public's Increasing Punitiveness and Its Influence on Mass Incarceration in the United States

Following more than 30 years of rising incarceration rates, the United States now imprisons a higher proportion of its population than any country in the world. Building on theories of representation and organized interest group behavior, this article argues that an increasingly punitive public has been a primary reason for this prolific expansion. To test this hypothesis, I generate a new over‐time measure of the public's support for being tough on crime. The analysis suggests that, controlling for the crime rate, illegal drug use, inequality, and the party in power, since 1953 public opinion has been a fundamental determinant of changes in the incarceration rate. If the public's punitiveness had stopped rising in the mid‐1970s, the results imply that there would have been approximately 20% fewer incarcerations. Additionally, an analysis of congressional attention to criminal justice issues supports the argument that the public's attitudes have led, not followed, political elites.     

FINANCING THE WAR ON DRUGS: THE IMPACT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT GRANTS ON RACIAL DISPARITIES IN DRUG ARRESTS

This study estimates the impact of the discretionary Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program (EBMGP) on drug arrests and crime. The 1986 and 1988 Anti‐Drug Abuse Act allocated federal funds to state and local municipalities to combat illicit drug use and violent crime associated with drug sales and trafficking. The results show that the implementation of the EBMGP resulted in an increase in police hiring, an increase in drug sales arrest rates for Blacks and Whites, and a decrease in total crime. Nonetheless, Black‐White racial disparity in the drug sales arrest rate still significantly increases by approximately 1 for every 1,000 Black residents. Our findings highlight the role of federal crime control policies in state and local policing. Although, the EBMGP was a color‐blind policy initiative, it was not race neutral in its implementation.     

The Imprisonment Crisis in America: Introduction

This article provides an overview of recent trends in imprisonment rates in America and introduces the articles in this issue of The Review of Policy Research. Incarceration rates have increased by more than 500 percent since the early 1970s and have now reached a rate of almost 700, higher than anywhere else in the world. The impact has been particularly hard on racial minorities, especially women (whose incarceration rate went from around 8 in 1975 to 59 in 2001). The “war on drugs” has been one of the main reasons behind the increases in imprisonment, along with the more general “get tough on crime” movement that began in the late 1970s. The articles in this issue center around how this recent trend in incarceration impacts the entire society, but especially poor communities. Several of the articles focus on race, age and gender as important variables, in addition to the tendency of the parole system to sort of “recycle” released prisoners back into the prison system.     

我国量刑程序的构建——以英美量刑程序为视角的分析

量刑不均衡是我国刑事司法实践中面临的一个普遍问题。量刑程序相对独立于定罪程序,有利于被告人辩护权的实现,并形成对法官自由裁量权的制约,实现量刑的一致性。英美两国独立的量刑程序对我国量刑程序的构建有重要的借鉴价值,但在我国有效的案件分流机制未形成的情况下,构建相对独立的量刑模式是理性的选择。     

Is Representation Enough? Racial Disparities in Levels of Force and Arrests by Police

The research in representative bureaucracy that examines the extent to which racial congruence impacts bureaucrats’ decisions is mixed. This study adds to this literature by examining the impact of representative bureaucracy on the level of force that police officers use and whether they make an arrest in use of force encounters, while taking into consideration key situational conditions. Using individual-level data from New Orleans to estimate this impact, the authors find that racial congruence and incongruence impact policing outcomes even in the presence of situational shortcuts that cue decision-making. The findings show that the benefits of representation are conditional on the outcome. Black officers are less likely to use higher levels of force on Black civilians. Yet both Black and White officers are less likely to arrest White civilians in use of force encounters. This suggests that interactions in which bureaucrats have less discretion (e.g., arrests) may offer limited opportunities for active representation.     

Learning from Uncle Sam? Exploring U.S. Influences on British Crime Control Policy

This paper examines the idea of "policy transfer" in the arena of crime control. More specifically, it examines the influence of the United States on recent criminal justice and penal policy developments in Britain. Three policy areas are discussed: privatized corrections, "zero-tolerance" policing, and "three-strikes" sentencing. Changes in these areas are widely perceived as being strongly influenced by developments in the U.S., although there has yet to be a systematic empirical study of how and why these policy developments occurred. Drawing on a review of literature, this paper examines the plausibility of the idea of policy transfer and highlights distinct routes through which policy transfer may occur between jurisdictions. It uses Bennett's (1991) model of "policy convergence" as a framework for exploring how "emulation,""elite-networking,""harmonization," and "penetration" might have been relevant to policy changes in these areas. Finally, the paper considers how the concept of policy transfer in criminal justice and penal policy might be further examined empirically.     

宽严相济的刑事政策与未成年人犯罪刑罚的适用

宽严相济的刑事政策要求在适用刑罚时要根据实际需要当宽则宽、当严则严，宽严审时、宽严有度。由于未成年人身心发育的特点及犯罪原因的特殊性，对未成年犯科刑时应当体现出轻缓、宽容的一面，对较为严厉且不能实现刑罚目的的无期徒刑、财产刑及资格刑的适用应当作出相应的限制。     

Protest and property crime: political use of police resources and the deterrence of crime

This article investigates the claim that the political use of police resources promotes crime. Using a panel of South Korean metropolitan areas, we show that (1) the reallocation of police resources toward the control of political protests reduces arrest rates for crime and (2) the resulting reduction in criminal arrests significantly increases the incidence of crime. Overall, the impact of the reallocation of police resources works mainly through tradeoffs with arrest rates. Our findings imply that it is not the size of the police per se, but the allocation of police resources toward crime control that deters crime.     

Commerce with Criminals: The New Colonialism in Criminal Justice

This article examines the reappearance of for-profit imprisonment in the US by focusing specifically on the racial and colonialistic history of imprisonment for private profit in America. The article documents that during the two periods of American history in which corrections policy facilitated wholesale private profit through imprisonment, first during the proprietary operation of the convict lease system in the mid 1860s and again today (since the mid-1980s), incarceration of disproportionately large numbers of African American men has been the industry's chief source of revenue. The article demonstrates a renewed focus on African American crime as the chief source of private profit in today's second era of African American mass imprisonment. The article notes the return of a transnational system of commerce capitalizing on economically and politically dispossessed prisoners for its coercive system of economic production.     

The Hunting of the Snark: Reflections on a Half Century of Crime

John Croft is a former head of the UK's Home Office Research and Planning Unit, so is able to draw on extensive experience to offer this reflective examination of half a century of involvement in the criminal justice system. He surveys the shifting patterns of research, popular attitudes and social emphasis, relates them to the changing political context, and asks a number of telling questions — including 'What works?' The author concludes that not much does work, and that government has had little influence on fluctuations in the crime rate since the Second World War. He recommends periodic reviews of research across the whole criminal justice system, perhaps on a ten‐year cycle; more comparative research, which would help to illuminate problems and perhaps suggest solutions; a closer look at the interaction between social and criminal policies; and a re‐examination of risk assessment, particularly in its implications for penology.     

THE USE OF MANDATORY SENTENCING LEGISLATION AS SYMBOLIC STATEMENTS

Mandatory sentencing legislation often results in laws which use provisions and set penalties in order to make strong symbolic and political statements. Thus, in addition to protecting society, they are powerful vehicles for expressing moral outrage. This is especially evident in mandatory sentencing for drug and alcohol offenses. The present research examines the consequences of that practice on one state's criminal justice system. Interviews with key actors along with examinations of official documents, newspaper publicity and media campaigns illustrate the political decisions and symbolic statements which pervade driving-while-intoxicated (DWI) legislation. The process is studied from before the lawls enactment through its subsequent outcome.