L L Miller
Biographic Data
| ID | 44616 |
|---|---|
| NAME | L L Miller |
| GIVEN NAMES | L L |
| FAMILY NAME | Miller |
| SIGNATURE | MILLER L L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6165-2203 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 204 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Lethal Violence and the Americas
Scholars of mass incarceration in the United States often compare the extreme nature of U.S. imprisonment and other forms of state coercion to much less punitive forms in Europe. But it is not just harsh imprisonment, violent policing, and the death penalty that distinguish the U.S. from Europe. The United States also has relatively high rates of murder, distinctive political institutions, and a different origin story. This essay situates the U.S…
Who Benefits From Federalism Claims in Federal Court
Debates about the virtues or vices of American-style federalism are as old as the Republic. While scholars generally agree that American federalism facilitates multiple levels of political contestation, there is less agreement on the democratic implications of these multiple battlegrounds. This article focuses on an area that receives little attention among American politics scholars: federalism claims against national authority in federal courts…
Lethal Violence and the Racialized Failure of the American State
Scholarly work in American politics has yet to confront one of the nation’s starkest inequalities: lethal violence. The risk falls disproportionately on Black Americans, but much like poverty and inequality, lethal violence is a broadly American problem that African Americans are disproportionately likely to experience. The lack of attention to life-threatening violence has limited our understanding of race, criminal justice, and the nature of th…
The Politics of Crime, Punishment and Justice
The life course paradigm brought a focus on continuity and change in offending across the entire life span to criminology. Early research evolved to capture individual-level variation and the events, experiences and opportunities that functioned to spur change and alter behavioural trajectories. Though the notion that ‘lives change in a changing society’ (Elder et al. 1994: 11) is fundamental to the life course paradigm, the principle of historic…
Racial battle lines and American political institutions
Checks and Balances, Veto Exceptionalism, and Constitutional Folk Wisdom
Conventional accounts of the U.S. constitution laud its checks and balances for diffusing power across many venues, limiting the potential for government oppression, and protecting political minorities. I refer to this as constitutional folk wisdom and contrast it with an American political economy approach of veto exceptionalism to better understand how the U.S. constitution shapes, and is shaped, by power relations. This analysis illustrates th…
The Conservative Policy Bias of US Senate Malapportionment
The US Senate is unique in the United States and rare internationally for its total disregard of population differences among its representational units. To analyze malapportionment’s policy impact, we devised a hypothetical reapportionment scheme that more closely approximates state population but remains favorable to small states. We developed a formula to reweight senators’ roll-call votes to reflect better state population differences. We rec…
Racialized Anti-Statism and the Failure of the American State
How well do we understand the political moment in which we find ourselves in the wake of the Trump presidency? The United States has long failed to keep up with its democratic peers on a wide range of social outcomes but the struggle to keep a pandemic at bay, coupled with increases in social violence and new uprisings over state violence have exposed the failures of the American state in a stark manner. While research on political attitudes cont…
Vanessa Barker, Nordic Nationalism and Penal Order
Time to Rein in the Prosecutors
An expert makes a detailed case for criminal justice reform, yet offers few answers for the kind of violent crime wave that led to the era of mass incarceration—and ravages minority communities
The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research
This article reviews classic and contemporary case study research in law and social science. Taking as its starting point that legal scholars engaged in case studies generally have a set of questions distinct from those using other research approaches, the essay offers a detailed discussion of three primary contributions of case studies in legal scholarship: theory building, concept formation, and processes/mechanisms. The essay describes the rol…
Making the State Pay
This chapter argues that the literature on the politics of punishment generally, and on US exceptionalism specifically, suffers from insufficient attention to serious violence. It complicates conventional assumptions about democratic politics, mass publics, and crime. Drawing on three cases—the United Kingdom, the United States, and the state of Pennsylvania—this chapter illustrates that rates of violence matter for political attention to crime. …
Black women, victimization, and the limitations of the liberal state
This article challenges contemporary understandings of the US carceral state by confronting the realities of exceptionally high rates of homicide victimization among Black women and considering the implications for equality and understandings of the carceral state. We propose that neither the US state nor the US penal order can be fully understood without taking account of the exceptionally high rates of violence to which Black women are exposed.…
Introduction to the special issue on the state of the State
The Myth of Mob Rule
Scholars and laypersons alike routinely express doubt about the ability of democratic publics to adequately assess risk and to respond rationally when emotionally charged issues like crime are on the political agenda, particularly when race and class biases are invoked. In the United States, which has the highest imprisonment rate in the developed world, many scholars have concluded that there are simply too many opportunities for elected officia…
What’s violence got to do with it? Inequality, punishment, and state failure in US politics
This paper offers a reframing of the dynamics of crime and punishment in the United States by exploring lethal violence and situating both violence and punishment within the larger capacity of the US political system to shield citizens from a range of social risks. I argue that security from violence is an important state obligation and then illustrate the exceptionally high rates of lethal violence in the US, relative to other rich democracies, …
Police and Lethal Force
This essay serves as a response to Hirschfield's (2015) article, “Lethal Policing: Making Sense of American Exceptionalism,” published in the December 2015 issue of this journal
Power to the people
Contemporary scholarship on punishment, politics and society generally treats democratic politics and crime policy as a dangerous mix. In this view, when crime comes onto democratic political agendas, it generates perverse political incentives that result in politicians pandering to and/or manipulating mass publics bent on harsh punishment. In this article, I argue that an examination of violent victimization complicates this conventional wisdom.…
Guns, Drugs and Development in Colombia - by Holmes, Jennifer S., Gutiérrez de Piñeres, Sheila A., and Curtin, Kevin M
The local and the legal
The Invisible Black Victim
The promise of civil rights is the promise of inclusion; yet the vast disparity in incarceration rates between blacks, Latinos, and whites stands as an ugly reminder of the nation's long history of race-based exclusionary practices. In this article, I argue that an important aspect of understanding race and the law in the twenty-first century is an appreciation of the American federal system that structures legal authority, political mobilization…
The Perils of Federalism
The Representational Biases of Federalism
In 1960, E.E. Schattschneider noted that every change in the scope of political conflict has a bias; political conflicts that are localized tend to be highly restrictive, while nationalizing conflicts can draw in previously excluded groups. In contrast to this conventional wisdom, this paper suggests that the question of which venues are open to which interests is an empirical one.Lisa L. Miller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at R…
The Federal/State Criminal Prosecution Nexus
Contemporary studies of prosecutorial decision making at the state level are infrequent, and even fewer studies examine the discretionary decisions of federal prosecutors. In addition, virtually no scholarly literature examines the growing overlap between federal and state criminal jurisdiction. This paper advances both theoretical and empirical understandings of the organizational and political contexts in which prosecutorial discretion takes pl…
Racialized State Failure and the Violent Death of Michael Brown
Sources of Informal Social Control in Chicago Neighborhoods
Why do youth in structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods experience lower levels of informal social control? To answer this question, we examined multilevel data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Using hierarchical regression, we found that (1) neighborhood attachment and satisfaction with police contributed significantly to neighborhood levels of informal social control; and (2) neighborhood attachment and satisfact…
The Invisible Black Victim
The promise of civil rights is the promise of inclusion; yet the vast disparity in incarceration rates between blacks, Latinos, and whites stands as an ugly reminder of the nation's long history of race-based exclusionary practices. In this article, I argue that an important aspect of understanding race and the law in the twenty-first century is an appreciation of the American federal system that structures legal authority, political mobilization…
What’s violence got to do with it? Inequality, punishment, and state failure in US politics
This paper offers a reframing of the dynamics of crime and punishment in the United States by exploring lethal violence and situating both violence and punishment within the larger capacity of the US political system to shield citizens from a range of social risks. I argue that security from violence is an important state obligation and then illustrate the exceptionally high rates of lethal violence in the US, relative to other rich democracies, …
Rethinking Bureaucrats in the Policy Process
Policy scholars have noted that bureaucrats can play an important role in defining policy alternatives. Few studies, however, examine the extent of their involvement in this process. This study contributes to public policy scholarship by offering a framework for understanding the strength of bureaucratic involvement in the process of defining problems and policy alternatives. Using witness data from congressional hearings on crime between 1947 an…
The Representational Biases of Federalism
In 1960, E.E. Schattschneider noted that every change in the scope of political conflict has a bias; political conflicts that are localized tend to be highly restrictive, while nationalizing conflicts can draw in previously excluded groups. In contrast to this conventional wisdom, this paper suggests that the question of which venues are open to which interests is an empirical one.Lisa L. Miller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at R…
Power to the people
Contemporary scholarship on punishment, politics and society generally treats democratic politics and crime policy as a dangerous mix. In this view, when crime comes onto democratic political agendas, it generates perverse political incentives that result in politicians pandering to and/or manipulating mass publics bent on harsh punishment. In this article, I argue that an examination of violent victimization complicates this conventional wisdom.…
Checks and Balances, Veto Exceptionalism, and Constitutional Folk Wisdom
Conventional accounts of the U.S. constitution laud its checks and balances for diffusing power across many venues, limiting the potential for government oppression, and protecting political minorities. I refer to this as constitutional folk wisdom and contrast it with an American political economy approach of veto exceptionalism to better understand how the U.S. constitution shapes, and is shaped, by power relations. This analysis illustrates th…
Looking for Postmodernism in all the Wrong Places
Journal Article Looking for Postmodernism in all the Wrong Places : Implementing a New Penology Get access Lisa L. Miller Lisa L. Miller *The Pennsylvania State University. The author would like to thank Judy Aks, Lennie Feldman, Sarah Pralle and Karin Roberts for their feedback on earlier versions of this article. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 41, Issue 1, Janu…
Black women, victimization, and the limitations of the liberal state
This article challenges contemporary understandings of the US carceral state by confronting the realities of exceptionally high rates of homicide victimization among Black women and considering the implications for equality and understandings of the carceral state. We propose that neither the US state nor the US penal order can be fully understood without taking account of the exceptionally high rates of violence to which Black women are exposed.…
The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research
This article reviews classic and contemporary case study research in law and social science. Taking as its starting point that legal scholars engaged in case studies generally have a set of questions distinct from those using other research approaches, the essay offers a detailed discussion of three primary contributions of case studies in legal scholarship: theory building, concept formation, and processes/mechanisms. The essay describes the rol…
The Conservative Policy Bias of US Senate Malapportionment
The US Senate is unique in the United States and rare internationally for its total disregard of population differences among its representational units. To analyze malapportionment’s policy impact, we devised a hypothetical reapportionment scheme that more closely approximates state population but remains favorable to small states. We developed a formula to reweight senators’ roll-call votes to reflect better state population differences. We rec…
Police and Lethal Force
This essay serves as a response to Hirschfield's (2015) article, “Lethal Policing: Making Sense of American Exceptionalism,” published in the December 2015 issue of this journal
The local and the legal
Who Benefits From Federalism Claims in Federal Court
Debates about the virtues or vices of American-style federalism are as old as the Republic. While scholars generally agree that American federalism facilitates multiple levels of political contestation, there is less agreement on the democratic implications of these multiple battlegrounds. This article focuses on an area that receives little attention among American politics scholars: federalism claims against national authority in federal courts…
Racial battle lines and American political institutions
Introduction to the special issue on the state of the State
The functional committee model
The functional committee model. J C Abdo, W J Bennet, A Brownfield, J Brusstar, L L Miller, and W I YamahataCopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.64.1.61 Published Online: October 07, 2011
Uwe Johnson's Jahrestage
Fontane's "Effi Briest." Innstetten's Decision
Looking for Postmodernism in all the Wrong Places
Journal Article Looking for Postmodernism in all the Wrong Places : Implementing a New Penology Get access Lisa L. Miller Lisa L. Miller *The Pennsylvania State University. The author would like to thank Judy Aks, Lennie Feldman, Sarah Pralle and Karin Roberts for their feedback on earlier versions of this article. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 41, Issue 1, Janu…
Sources of Informal Social Control in Chicago Neighborhoods
Why do youth in structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods experience lower levels of informal social control? To answer this question, we examined multilevel data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Using hierarchical regression, we found that (1) neighborhood attachment and satisfaction with police contributed significantly to neighborhood levels of informal social control; and (2) neighborhood attachment and satisfact…
Rethinking Bureaucrats in the Policy Process
Policy scholars have noted that bureaucrats can play an important role in defining policy alternatives. Few studies, however, examine the extent of their involvement in this process. This study contributes to public policy scholarship by offering a framework for understanding the strength of bureaucratic involvement in the process of defining problems and policy alternatives. Using witness data from congressional hearings on crime between 1947 an…
The Federal/State Criminal Prosecution Nexus
Contemporary studies of prosecutorial decision making at the state level are infrequent, and even fewer studies examine the discretionary decisions of federal prosecutors. In addition, virtually no scholarly literature examines the growing overlap between federal and state criminal jurisdiction. This paper advances both theoretical and empirical understandings of the organizational and political contexts in which prosecutorial discretion takes pl…
The Representational Biases of Federalism
In 1960, E.E. Schattschneider noted that every change in the scope of political conflict has a bias; political conflicts that are localized tend to be highly restrictive, while nationalizing conflicts can draw in previously excluded groups. In contrast to this conventional wisdom, this paper suggests that the question of which venues are open to which interests is an empirical one.Lisa L. Miller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at R…
The Perils of Federalism
The Invisible Black Victim
The promise of civil rights is the promise of inclusion; yet the vast disparity in incarceration rates between blacks, Latinos, and whites stands as an ugly reminder of the nation's long history of race-based exclusionary practices. In this article, I argue that an important aspect of understanding race and the law in the twenty-first century is an appreciation of the American federal system that structures legal authority, political mobilization…
Guns, Drugs and Development in Colombia - by Holmes, Jennifer S., Gutiérrez de Piñeres, Sheila A., and Curtin, Kevin M
The local and the legal
Power to the people
Contemporary scholarship on punishment, politics and society generally treats democratic politics and crime policy as a dangerous mix. In this view, when crime comes onto democratic political agendas, it generates perverse political incentives that result in politicians pandering to and/or manipulating mass publics bent on harsh punishment. In this article, I argue that an examination of violent victimization complicates this conventional wisdom.…
What’s violence got to do with it? Inequality, punishment, and state failure in US politics
This paper offers a reframing of the dynamics of crime and punishment in the United States by exploring lethal violence and situating both violence and punishment within the larger capacity of the US political system to shield citizens from a range of social risks. I argue that security from violence is an important state obligation and then illustrate the exceptionally high rates of lethal violence in the US, relative to other rich democracies, …
Police and Lethal Force
This essay serves as a response to Hirschfield's (2015) article, “Lethal Policing: Making Sense of American Exceptionalism,” published in the December 2015 issue of this journal
The Myth of Mob Rule
Scholars and laypersons alike routinely express doubt about the ability of democratic publics to adequately assess risk and to respond rationally when emotionally charged issues like crime are on the political agenda, particularly when race and class biases are invoked. In the United States, which has the highest imprisonment rate in the developed world, many scholars have concluded that there are simply too many opportunities for elected officia…
Making the State Pay
This chapter argues that the literature on the politics of punishment generally, and on US exceptionalism specifically, suffers from insufficient attention to serious violence. It complicates conventional assumptions about democratic politics, mass publics, and crime. Drawing on three cases—the United Kingdom, the United States, and the state of Pennsylvania—this chapter illustrates that rates of violence matter for political attention to crime. …
Black women, victimization, and the limitations of the liberal state
This article challenges contemporary understandings of the US carceral state by confronting the realities of exceptionally high rates of homicide victimization among Black women and considering the implications for equality and understandings of the carceral state. We propose that neither the US state nor the US penal order can be fully understood without taking account of the exceptionally high rates of violence to which Black women are exposed.…
Introduction to the special issue on the state of the State
The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research
This article reviews classic and contemporary case study research in law and social science. Taking as its starting point that legal scholars engaged in case studies generally have a set of questions distinct from those using other research approaches, the essay offers a detailed discussion of three primary contributions of case studies in legal scholarship: theory building, concept formation, and processes/mechanisms. The essay describes the rol…
Time to Rein in the Prosecutors
An expert makes a detailed case for criminal justice reform, yet offers few answers for the kind of violent crime wave that led to the era of mass incarceration—and ravages minority communities
Vanessa Barker, Nordic Nationalism and Penal Order
Racialized Anti-Statism and the Failure of the American State
How well do we understand the political moment in which we find ourselves in the wake of the Trump presidency? The United States has long failed to keep up with its democratic peers on a wide range of social outcomes but the struggle to keep a pandemic at bay, coupled with increases in social violence and new uprisings over state violence have exposed the failures of the American state in a stark manner. While research on political attitudes cont…
Checks and Balances, Veto Exceptionalism, and Constitutional Folk Wisdom
Conventional accounts of the U.S. constitution laud its checks and balances for diffusing power across many venues, limiting the potential for government oppression, and protecting political minorities. I refer to this as constitutional folk wisdom and contrast it with an American political economy approach of veto exceptionalism to better understand how the U.S. constitution shapes, and is shaped, by power relations. This analysis illustrates th…
The Conservative Policy Bias of US Senate Malapportionment
The US Senate is unique in the United States and rare internationally for its total disregard of population differences among its representational units. To analyze malapportionment’s policy impact, we devised a hypothetical reapportionment scheme that more closely approximates state population but remains favorable to small states. We developed a formula to reweight senators’ roll-call votes to reflect better state population differences. We rec…
Political science (25 works) · Sociology (24 works) · Law (20 works) · Politics (17 works) · Criminology (15 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Democracy (7 works)