NCJ Number
85481
Journal
Crime and Social Justice Issue: 15 Dated: (Summer 1981) Pages: complete issue
Editor(s)
T Platt,
P Takagi
Date Published
1981
Length
81 pages
Annotation
A series of articles analyzing trends in various countries maintains that in these countries there is a qualitative shift to the right which takes the form of increasing imprisonment, increasing punishment severity, the increasing criminalization of behavior, and an expansion of the repressive apparatus.
Abstract
The countries diagnosed as moving toward the right include the United States, the Scandinavian countries, Canada, New Zealand, and Venezuela. The reports suggest that the shift to the right is not simply a regional phenomenon nor simply the expression of a specific political tendency or the result of internal criminal justice developments. Several authors observe that the new wave of law and order is connected to important developments in the political economy. The growth of the prison population is related to the growing unemployment rate. According to one paper, the shift to the right represents an economic policy of exploitation as well as a political and ideological policy used to manage the economic crisis. Though the shift to the right is not diagnosed as being monolithic or without contradictions, the policies of reaction are viewed as well-entrenched, to the extent that they pose a threat to the rights and gains won by the working class, especially minorities and women. The trend, however, is not irreversible, since the political power in many of the countries examined is in the hands of the people, whose actions can be influenced by public education on critical issues and whose organized influence can temper and change public policy.