NCJ Number
202088
Editor(s)
Thomas G. Blomberg,
Stanley Cohen
Date Published
2003
Length
526 pages
Annotation
Papers on issues in punishment and social control address theories and trends in punishment and social control, policing and surveillance, measuring and justifying punishment, and policy and reform that impact life inside the expanding prison.
Abstract
The five papers on theories and trends in punishment and social control address state punishment in advanced capitalist countries, modernism and postmodernism penal theories, the form and limits of the new penology, the social control of women, and the control of drug use. Four papers on policing and surveillance focus on staffing and training problem-oriented policing, development in undercover policing, surveillance and social control in postmodern life, and the evolution and control of torture in civil law jurisprudence and efforts to control torture in the United States. Five papers on measuring and justifying punishment consider some of the methodological problems in measuring the impact of penal policy, the use of the measurable variable of imprisonment rates to examine the "stability of punishment" hypothesis, the attractions and criticism of the principle of proportionality in sentencing, constricted rationality and the limits of general deterrence, and efforts to deal with injustices in the administration of capital punishment in the United States. Eight chapters address issues pertinent to efforts to improve the life of prison inmates. The issues discussed include what imprisonment does to inmates, the social relationship between inmates and staff, and prison as a miniature society. Other issues considered in this section are two case studies of the imprisonment of women in California, judicial impact on prison reform, inhumane aspects of punishment through imprisonment, trends in alternatives to incarceration, America's increasing use of imprisonment for law violations, the use of the prison to manage the poor and disadvantaged in society, and some theoretical and methodological consequences of mass incarceration. Chapter references and a subject index