This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by DOWNES, D. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Macho Penal Economy

Mass Incarceration in the United States - A European Perspective

London School of Economics, UK

The rise of mass incarceration in the USA is related to the historic character of American exceptionalism and the abandonment, over the past few decades, of policies of rehabilitation and radical social reform. The components for a compararable penal expansion are, with the exception of high rates of lethal violence, in process of assembly in some European societies: rates of serious property crime surpassing those in the USA; a shift in the politics of law and order towards `governing through crime' and populist punitiveness; and rising anxieties about risk and insecurity, in particular relating to ethnic minorities and crime. The distinctive character of social democratic societies, which has so far shielded them against mass incarceration and which already face challenge due to globalization, face further adverse comparison with the more deregulated US economy in terms of unemployment rates which are significantly distorted by the size of the American prison population. Economic debate should be better informed of the unprecedented extent to which the penal factor has come to exert a hidden influence on cross-national images of socioeconomic success and failure, and of the costs and benefits of social-democratic relative to more deregulated market economies.

Key Words: comparative penal policy • Europe • USA

Punishment & Society, Vol. 3, No. 1, 61-80 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/14624740122228258


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Cavadino and J. Dignan Penal policy and political economy JCriminology and Criminal Justice, November 1, 2006; 6(4): 435 - 456. [Abstract] [PDF]