The Growth of Incarceration in the United States Exploring Causes and Consequences (2014) / Chapter Skim
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12 The Prison in Society: Values and Principles
12 The Prison in Society: Values and Principles
Pages 320-333
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From page 320... ...
The country experienced a tumultuous period of economic and political change, rapidly rising crime rates, and changing race relations. The politics of criminal justice policy became much more punitive.
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From page 321... ...
, reporting for the Committee for the Study of Incarceration, detailed a theory of punishment based on retribution and deterrence in his book Doing Justice, and he added the phrase "just deserts" to the nation's criminal justice vocabulary. Numerous other philosophers, criminal lawyers, and correctional officials urged that retribution be recognized as the primary purpose of punishment (e.g., Morris, 1966; Morris, 1974; Fogel, 1979)
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From page 322... ...
As the goals of crime control and offender accountability ascended, however, long-standing principles that limited harsh punishment receded from political debate and crime policy. The magnitude of the increase in incarceration rates after 1972 and the speed with which it occurred demonstrate the transformation of the purposes of punishment.
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From page 323... ...
Each of these principles recognizes that the forcible deprivation of liberty through incarceration is an awesome state power that is vulnerable to misuse, threatening the republican values that underpin the legitimacy of the prison and of the state. These principles of restraint are complements, not alternatives, to recent emphases on offender accountability and crime control.
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From page 324... ...
However, this has not always been true in the United States, as we show in Chapter 3. During the half century when indeterminate sentencing systems were ubiquitous, many people believed that punishments should be individualized to take account of offenders' rehabilitative prospects and to reflect public safety needs for their incapacitation.
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From page 325... ...
The core ideas about justice and equal treatment that motivated support for proportionality were eroded by the adoption of mandatory minimum sentences, three-strikes laws, and other measures that readily imposed incarceration. Such laws often disconnected the severity of punishments from the seriousness of crimes.
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From page 326... ...
The late University of Chicago law professor Norval Morris likened it to a "Hippocratic criminal justice" oath according to which criminal punishments should do no harm beyond that which is minimally required in order to achieve valid social purposes (Tonry, 1994, 2004)
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From page 327... ...
The concentration of incarceration mainly among poor and minority men in severely disadvantaged communities means that the negative effects of incarceration, including diminution of the life chances of the children of those incarcerated, are also socially concentrated. Throughout this report, we presented evidence showing that those incarcerated face risks to economic opportunities and well-being, and that family members and neighborhoods may also be affected.
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From page 328... ...
Still, the idea that there are basic standards and rights to which all citizens remain entitled is reflected in two precepts of public policy that are widely although not universally applied: that the restrictions associated with incarceration are temporary, and that the nature of penal confinement must respect human dignity. Underlying measures for the temporary and dignified character of punishment is the concept of what Meyer (2010)
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From page 329... ...
Georgia, Justice William O Brennan famously wrote that "punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity." More recently, Justice Kennedy echoed these sentiments when, speaking directly about the way that harsh conditions of confinement could adversely and unconstitutionally affect the treatment of prisoners, he wrote that: "Prisoners retain the essence of human dignity inherent in all persons.
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From page 330... ...
Prisoners who return to free society emotionally damaged, socially marginalized, or unprepared to obtain gainful employment may never be able to become fully functioning and participating members of the community, violating the most basic tenets of the principles of citizenship. SOCIAL JUSTICE The legal and political theory of punishment is largely silent on the social context in which criminal behavior arises.
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From page 331... ...
This perspective was eclipsed as incarceration rates increased. Sentencing guidelines replaced indeterminate sentencing, discretionary parole release was widely abandoned and incarceration was used more readily.
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From page 332... ...
Public safety consistent with social justice goes beyond the traditional focus on the detection, apprehension, and prosecution of crimes to also encompass prevention, and the mitigation of the social and economic conditions in which crime tends to flourish. In contrast, if the criminal justice system preserves or exacerbates racial, economic, and other inequalities, social justice is compromised.
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From page 333... ...
In this chapter, we have elaborated a set of key normative principles with deep roots in jurisprudence and theories of governance. These principles help supplement the large body of empirical evidence we have reviewed, indicating future directions for policy and research.
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