Abstract
Whilst the authors of this review were reading The Punishment Imperative, which documents the relentless punitive spirit in the USA which has created the world’s largest prison population, the findings of a recent statistical study were published (Brame et al., 2014). The study showed that nearly half of the African-American men who grew up in the United States were arrested by their 23rd birthday (p. 471). Men identified as Latino or white did not fare much better with 44 per cent and 38 per cent respectively suffering the same fate (p. 472). These numbers would have been even higher had arrests for traffic violations been included.
Todd Clear and Natasha Frost present a detailed analysis of the grand social experiment in the United States called mass incarceration, documenting its rise and fall over the past 40 years. This book is groundbreaking in that it deviates from past penology literature and scholarship, seeking instead to embrace and contribute to a new discourse in mass incarceration. Early scholarship in the field tended to seek better understanding of the causes of mass incarceration (e.g. Gottschalk, 2006), while the next phase of books explored how mass incarceration impacted upon society including the prisoners and their families (e.g. Alexander, 2010). Contemporary penal scholars, however, are propounding strategies for the reduction of incarceration without compromising public safety (e.g. Cullen et al., 2014). It is to this last body of work that Clear and Frost have made a valuable contribution.
The book dissects US mass incarceration from a crime policy perspective: its longest chapter is devoted to a detailed analysis of US crime policy within the framework of a grand social experiment. By grand social experiment the authors mean ‘pursuing expansive social programs – in wholesale fashion – to address a social problem of some import’ (p. 48). It is precisely because the US prison population rose each year for 37 years beginning in 1972, ‘in times of economic booms and busts, with rising and falling crime rates, and in times of war and peace’ (p. 44), that the authors posit that mass incarceration was the result of a deliberate policy agenda rather than rises in crime caused by social circumstances. The authors’ objectives are to explore ‘the dynamics of that American idea, which we call a grand social experiment in punishment’ (p. 16). To that end, they describe the key sources, central tenets and main outcomes of this endeavour over six chapters.
The US prison population held steadily at 100 per 100,000 residents for over 50 years prior to the onset of mass incarceration which resulted in a rate over seven times that level. This growth has three distinct phases: an increased risk of imprisonment in the mid-1970s for all offenders; followed by an increased likelihood of imprisonment during the mid-1980s for drug-related offences on account of policies and practices pursuant to the ‘war on drugs’ witnessed during this period; pursued by a shift from the early 1990s to long-term sentencing for all offenders. The 40 years of mass imprisonment in the USA began with a ‘lock ’em up’ mindset that evolved into numerous ‘throw away the key’ policies. This is eloquently described in Chapter 4, which provides a compelling 40-page overview of the policies behind the punishment imperative.
The authors contend that grand social experiments develop in response to pressing social problems, which galvanise public and political opinion, resulting in the emergence of and general approval towards a novel response (p. 49). Whereas prior grand social experiments in the United States such as The New Deal and The Great Society were designed to help people and The Punishment Imperative represents a departure: it has devastated the lives of millions of individuals, hundreds of thousands of families and communities across every major city in the USA. This point is well argued by the authors in Chapter 5 and supported by data and studies.
The book warns that the legacy left by the social experiment will be hard to ignore. The authors propose a new era in penal justice and suggest practical and pragmatic policy measures which would change the existing approaches which result in mass incarceration. They evaluate various community programmes which compare favourably in terms of cost, impact and outcomes to imprisonment. The counsel they offer is promising and their suggestions have real potential. Encouragingly, the authors also cite evidence to suggest that the experiment may be coming to an end. They believe a combination of political shifts, an accumulation of damning empirical evidence and fiscal pressures have replaced the ‘commonsense’ notion that the criminal justice system must be tough with a newly developing consensus that the current situation can no longer be justified.
Of course, while the USA may ‘lead the way’ it is not the only country in the western world with a high rate of imprisonment. In 2011, the prison population in England and Wales was the 16th largest in the world and the fourth largest in Europe, after Russia, Turkey and the Ukraine (National Audit Office, 2012: 24) with little evidence of a clear correlation between prison numbers and crime rates (p. 26). This book presents a compelling case against the punitive policies evident in the USA over the last four decades and offers suggestions, supported by empirical data, for more effective alternatives. Let us hope that policy-makers on both sides of the pond make time in their busy schedules to read it.