The prisoners' dilemma political economy and punishment in contemporary democracies

Bibliographic Data

ID6525263
AuthorsNicola Lacey
Year2008
Pages254
Publication date2008-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueThe prisoners' dilemma political economy and punishment in contemporary democracies (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
OpenAlexW4230030470
Open LibraryOL16728278M
ISBN9780521899475
LanguageEN
References cited67

"Over the last two decades, in the wake of increases in recorded crime and a cluster of other social changes, British criminal justice policy has become increasingly politicised: both the scale and intensity of punishment and the significance of criminal justice policy as an index of governments' competence have developed in new and worrying ways. Across the Atlantic, we witness the inexorable rise of the US prison population, amid a ratcheting-up of penal severity which seems unstoppable in the face of popular anxiety about crime." "But is this inevitable? Nicola Lacey argues that harsh 'penal populism' is not the inevitable fate of all contemporary democracies. Notwithstanding a degree of convergence, 'globalisation' has left many of the key institutional differences between national systems intact, and these help to explain the striking differences in the capacity for penal moderation of otherwise relatively similar societies. Only by understanding the institutional preconditions for a tolerant criminal justice system can we think clearly about the possible options for reform within particular systems."--Jacket

Criminal justice · Criminology · Development economics · Dilemma · Economic growth · Economics · Europe · Globalization · Great Britain · Imprisonment · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Populism · Prison · Prison population · Social science · Sociology · United States · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Administration of Criminal justice · Western · Western Europe

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