New Right and Social Justice-Implications for the Prisoners' Movement

• NCJ Number: 94206
• Author(s): J. G. Fox
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 13 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology, November 1982, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Annotation

The increase since 1975 in incarceration rates can be linked to the impact of the New Right political movement on social policy.

Abstract

The conservative viewpoint on criminal justice advocates retributive justice and lengthy prison terms. It dismisses social inequality, racism, poverty, and chronic unemployment of causal factors in criminal behavior. Along with the change in political climate has come a disunity in the prisoners' rights movement, which seeks due process guarantees and liberalization of institutional control mechanisms. In order to instigate a revival of support and to counteract right wing ideology, factions in the prisoners' movement must create a coherent ideology of their own and promote the formation of community-based networks, political consciousness-raising groups, and employment development centers. Nine notes and about 40 references are supplied.