Life Sentences and Minor Offenses

Benchmarking, Recalibration, and the Culture of Collateral Consequence Reform

Bibliographic Data

ID6090602
AuthorsDavid Mcelhattan (0000-0002-4178-7175, Department of Sociology Purdue University West Lafayette Indiana USA, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume47
Issue2
Publication date2025-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLaw & Policy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0265-8240 • E-ISSN: 1467-9930
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/lapo.70000
OpenAlexW4408275664
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited60

The collateral consequences of justice involvement have become the subject of much reform activity in recent years. Drawing from a sample of 284 news articles, the present study uses content analysis methods to identify and examine the dominant frames that characterize collateral consequences in public discourse as a problematic feature of criminal justice policy and practice. The analysis finds that reform discourse draws primarily on a formal penal benchmark of gross disproportionality, which highlights the extreme disconnect between minor direct punishments for low‐level offenses and the long‐term collateral barriers that a person faces because of their criminal record. Gross disproportionality corresponds to a vision of reform that seeks to recalibrate collateral consequences according to the structure of direct punishment, an approach that may render collateral consequences more formally penal as a result of the reform process itself

Benchmarking · Collateral · Collateral damage · Criminology · Economics · Management · Minor (academic · Political science · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Legal Systems and Judicial Processes · Psychology

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