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Punishment & Society
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Social disruption, state priorities, and minority threat

A cross-national study of imprisonment

Rick Ruddell

California State University, Chico, USA

Understanding the use of punishment becomes increasingly important as imprisonment rates in many nations have fluctuated irrespective of crime rates. Controlling for violent crime, inequality, modernization, and economic stress, this research examined three diverse hypotheses about the sources of imprisonment in a sample of 100 nations. Consistent with expectations, nations that retained use of the death penalty had a greater use of imprisonment. More surprising was the finding of a clear and consistent relationship between imprisonment and countries with common law legal systems, as well as newly independent nation-states. Finally, this study reveals a significant – although inconsistent – association between population heterogeneity and imprisonment. While punishment research has often focused upon the relationships between economic variables and imprisonment, these findings suggest that theories of formal social control will remain incomplete until the roles of political, cultural, and structural conditions are fully understood.

Key Words: comparative criminal justice • cross-national imprisonment • imprisonment • punishment

Punishment & Society, Vol. 7, No. 1, 7-28 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1462474505048131
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