New Politics of Criminal Justice: Of "Three Strikes," Truth-in-Sentencing, and Megan's Law (From Perspectives on Crime and Justice: 1999-2000 Lecture Series, Volume 4, P 1-22, 2001)

• NCJ Number: 188081
• Author(s): Franklin Zimring
• Date Published: March 2001
• Length: 22 pages
• Corporate Author: National Institute of Justice (NIJ)
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/NCJRS; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This analysis of the changing politics of criminal justice in the 1990’s questions two theories that explain the cause of the increased hostility to criminals and government officials, describes characteristics that have helped shape the resulting penal legislation, and offers a theory of the causes of the political change.

Abstract

The analysis also suggests possible ways to limit the negative impact of the new politics on criminal justice. Two popular explanations for laws abolishing parole, three-strikes legislation, and other sentencing laws are that the intense new politics of punishment is either a result of rising crime rates or the product of increasing citizen hostility toward criminals. However, the bulk of the increase in violent crime occurred between 1964 and 1974, when the homicide rate doubled. The crime pattern does not follow the pattern of punitive policies on either the upside or the downside. In addition, populist attitudes about most crime and most criminals have probably always been consistently negative in the United States. Three characteristics of the recent politics of punishment that deserve special attention are the loose link between the symbolism and the implementation of punishment laws, the zero-sum rhetoric supporting punishment proposals, and the paradoxical politics of distrust in penal legislation. The factors that probably account for the changed political atmosphere are the growth of single-issue lobbies dedicated to criminal punishment issues and the reduced distance between the symbolic politics of crime and the locations in government where the punishments are set. Potential countermeasures to unitary and extreme political control of punishment include efforts to separate individual punishment decisions from general attitudes toward crime and the insulation of the sentencing of offenders from political sentiments by interposing expert institutions. Questions and answers. For the document in which this article appears, see NCJ-184245