Criminal Justice Policy

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Criminal Justice Policy

• Ch. 14 Protective Policies Defense and Law
  Enforcement (pp. 403-414 in Peters)
  
•  Death Penalty Controversies (CQ Researcher)
• Why are U.S. Incarceration Rates So High?
  Michael Tonry, Crime Delinquency, Vol. 45, No.
  4, 419-437 (1999).

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Incarceration in America

• History
• a recent phenomenon
• Colonial era fines, shame (stocks/cages),
  whipping, banishment (NYC, 1733-43 whipped and
  banished nearly every nonresident guilty of
  theft), hanging (for the most serious of crimes
  and repeat offenders)
• Imprisonment as a democratic reform
• 1786 PA eliminates death penalty for robbery and
  burglary other states follow example
  
• What to do with offenders? Incarceration

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Incarceration in America

• Federal prisons (12 of all prisoners 6 of all
  incarcerated) (12/31/2005)
  
• Three Prisons Act 1890
• Bureau of Prisons Act 1930
• Characteristics of Federal Prisoners
• 93 male
• 57.5 white
• 31.4 Hispanic
• 10 High security
• 43 medium or low
• 29 non-citizen
• Large of drug offenders

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Incarceration in America

• State Prisons (61)
• - 51 prison systems
• Characteristics of State Prisoners
• 94 male
• 47.7 white
• 14.7 Hispanic
• Larger of violent offenders

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Incarceration in America

• Local jails(33)
• misdemeanors, awaiting trial, short sentences
• majority are unconvicted
• 13 under "jail supervision" are not living in
  jail facility
  
• 89 male
• 41 White(NH)
• 42 Black, 16 Hispanic

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Theories of Imprisonment(Stability of Punishment
Thesis)
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Challenging the Stability of Punishment Thesis
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The Incarceration Explosion

• The Incarceration Explosion
• the U.S. incarceration rate has more than tripled
  since 1980
  
• 2 million people behind bars (2005) 6 million
  under some form of control by criminal justice
  system
  
• The American inmate population has grown so large
  that it is difficult to comprehend imagine the
  combined populations of Atlanta, St. Louis,
  Pittsburgh, Des Moines, and Miami behind bars.
• The biggest prison system in the Western
  industrialized world is now.....

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The Incarceration Explosion

• The Incarceration Explosion
• CAs prison system (163,001 - 2000) is bigger
  than the federal prison system
  
• The CA prison/jail population is larger than that
  of France, Japan, Great Britain, Germany,
  Singapore, and the Netherlands....(more
  international comparisons)
• COMBINED
• The country with the largest percentage of
  citizens behind bars is........(U.S., or possibly
  China)
  
• No other society in human history has ever
  imprisoned so many of its own citizens for the
  purposes of crime control (Marc Mauer, The Race
  to Incarcerate)

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Why?
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Why?

• Crime?
• Public Opinion? Media?
• Demographics?
• Unemployment?
• Public Policy?
• Tough sentencing policies
• The drug war

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Crime Rates and Incarceration Rates in the U.S.
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Why?

• Increases in incarceration rates are in large
  part a result of changes in criminal justice
  policy
  
• Increase in the power/discretion of law
  enforcement (Supreme Court rulings)
  
• Increase in law enforcement effort
• Increase in the severity of criminal sentences

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Why?

• Increasing the Severity of Criminal Sentences
• Sentencing reform
• The failure of the rehabilitative ideal
• Indeterminate vs. determinate sentencing
• Mandatory minimum sentences
• Three strikes laws
• Increasing use of the death penalty

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Assessing the Incarceration Explosion

• In a very real sense, we have been engaged in an
  experiment, testing the degree to which a modern
  industrial society can maintain public order
  through the threat of punishmentWe now need to
  ask how well the experiment has worked. (Currie,
  p. 21)

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Assessing the Incarceration Explosion

• Effects on Crime debated
• Two types of effects
• 1. Incapacitation
• Weaknesses
• Only works to the extent that those imprisoned
  would be committing additional crimes.
  
• Replacement effect potentially applies to
  crime committed via groups or organizations (e.g.
  gangs)
  
• "Criminal Justice Funnel" Most offenders not
  arrested or imprisoned
  
• 2. Deterrent hard to measure

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Assessing the Incarceration Explosion

• What has been the total effect of
• imprisonment on crime?
• Statistical studies
• inherent difficulties
• results of studies effect of imprisonment
  relatively small
  

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Assessing the Incarceration Explosion

• Costs of Imprisonment Boom (as implemented)
• Expense displaces other forms of social
  spending that may serve to reduce poverty/crime
  more effectively.
  
• Because of this, relatively little investment in
  post-release programs to prevent recidivism.
  
• Imprisonment may actually serve to increase crime
  by (1) imprisoning non-recidivists, and (2)
  turning them into hardened criminals
  
• Effects on family members
• Rise of the Prison Industrial Complex
  (political consequences?) (Private prisons 7)
  
• Voter Disenfranchisement (and racial disparity)

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Felony Disenfranchisement

• Current Disenfranchisement Laws (States)
• Impact
• Policy process

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Voter Turnout Over Time
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Felony Disenfranchisement
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Felony Disenfranchisement
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The War on Drugs

• Late 1960s
• Recreational drug use rises in U.S.
• Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs is
  founded (1968)
  
• 1970s
• 1970 - Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and
  Control Act
  
• 1971 - Nixon declares war on drugs
• 71 - Special Action Office for Drug Abuse
  Prevention
  
• 72 - Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement
  (ODALE) - establish joint federal/local task
  forces to fight the drug trade at the street
  level
• 73 - The Drug Enforcement Administration is
  established
  

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The War on Drugs

• 1970s (contd)
• 78 - Asset forfeiture introduced (CDAPCA)
• 1980s
• 82 - Largest cocaine seizure ever raises U.S.
  awareness of Medellin cartel (3906 lbs.)
  
• 84 - just say no campaign
• 86 - The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 - 1.7
  billion
  
• mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses
• Possession of at least one kilogram of heroin or
  five kilograms of cocaine is punishable by at
  least ten years in prison

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The War on Drugs

• 1980s (contd)
• 89 - Office of National Drug Control Policy
• Drug czar

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Explaining the Drug War

• Objectivist vs. Constructionist perspectives
• Katherine Beckett
• Making Crime Pay Law and Order in Contemporary Am
  erican Politics 1997
  
• Michael Tonry
• Malign Neglect 1994

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Explaining the Drug War

• Objectivist perspective - Drug use?

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Explaining the Drug War

• Objectivist perspective - Drug use?

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Explaining the Drug War

• Public opinion?

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Public Opinion Drugs as Most Important Problem
Source Beckett, Social Problems, Vol. 41, No. 3.
(Aug., 1994), pp. 425-447.
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Media Coverage of Drug Issue
Source Beckett, Social Problems, Vol. 41, No. 3.
(Aug., 1994), pp. 425-447.
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Government Drug War Initiative
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Explaining the Drug War

• Government-initiated electoral
  motivations/legitimacy
  
• Role of media has helped create public support

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The Mobilization Model
Government (formal agenda)
Mass Public
Public Agenda
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Explaining the Drug War

• Government-initiated electoral
  motivations/legitimacy
  
• Role of media has helped create public support
• Has been self-perpetuating due to federal/state
  bureaucracy
  
• Federal-state grants
• Asset forfeiture

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The Consequences of the Drug War

• Michael Tonry and Malign Neglect
• The War was unnecessary
• The War is/was a failure
• The cost was tremendous

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The Consequences of the Drug War

• Tonry The War was fought largely from partisan
  political motives to show that the Bush and
  Reagan (and Clinton) administrations were
  concerned about public safety, crime prevention,
  and the needs of victims.

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The Consequences of the Drug War

• Tonry The War on Drugs foreseeably and
  unnecessarily blighted the lives of hundreds of
  thousands of disadvantaged black Americans and
  undermined decades of effort to improve the life
  chances of members of the urban black underclass.

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Disparities in Drug Laws

• The emergence of crack
• differences between crack and powder cocaine
• intensity/duration of high
• crack as a cause of violence
• open-air markets (crack) vs. secure settings
  (cocaine)

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Disparities in Drug Laws

• Federal sentencing
• Powder cocaine possession with intent to
  distribute carries a five year sentence for
  quantities of 500 grams or more.
  
• Crack cocaine a conviction of possession with
  intent to distribute carries a five year sentence
  for only 5 grams.

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Disparities in Drug Laws
Source Sentencing Project
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Disparities in Drug Laws
Source Sentencing Project
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Disparities in Drug Laws
Source Sentencing Project
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Disparities in Drug Laws
Source Sentencing Project
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Racial Disparity in Prison Admissions
Source Rand
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Racial Disparity in Imprisonment Rates
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The International Drug War

• Plan Colombia
• U.S. strategies to stop cocaine production and
  export to U.S.
  
• How effective? Why?
• Explaining U.S. policy linked to broader
  foreign policy goals political and economic
  interests in Colombia