NCJ Number
171224
Journal
Corrections Management Quarterly Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Dated: (Summer 1997) Pages: 1-5
Date Published
1997
Length
5 pages
Annotation
The future of crime policy matters not only in terms of justice issues and victimization rates but in terms of the future of representative democracy and public confidence in political institutions.
Abstract
Arguably, today one threat to public trust in representative democracy resides not in what government does in realms such as social welfare and tax policy, but in what government has failed to do in response to a persistent public plea for action to protect law-abiding citizens of all races, creeds, colors, incomes, and ages from being victimized by crime. Here a persistent public majority exists, and here it has felt repeatedly frustrated. With respect to crime control, all that the American people have ever demanded from government, and all that they have been demanding since the mid-1960s, are common- sense policies that result in the detection, arrest, conviction, and punishment of violent and repeat criminals. All they have asked for are policies that do not return persons who assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal drugs, and murder to the streets without regard for public safety. All they have wanted from their representative democratic institutions are policies that do not positively encourage crime or invite tragedies that could be averted by sounder law enforcement practices. On crime and other issues, when the system fails to empower a persistent majority through legislative deliberation, direct democracy (referenda and initiatives) rears its head. The ultimate results are rarely pleasing to experts and policy elites and are rarely good for the people themselves. 16 references