Why Nations Jail
The U.S. imprisonment trend also looks like a hockey stick. Stable and modest growth occurred throughout the early twentieth century. Then in the 1970s, the line shot up, quintupling by the 2000s. Aside from dampening economic optimism, this trend evokes a similar visceral reaction to McCloskey’s. The change in U.S. inmate population has been so big and its accumulation so fast that it can’t be ignored.David Garland coined the phrase “mass imprisonment” because he thought the phenomenon deserved a name all its own. Like Europe’s “great confinement” of the 17th century or Russia’s “gulag archipelago,” modern America’s mass incarceration appears unique via two defining features, its sheer size and its racially disparate application.[2] The term has become standard parlance, and such “American” features take center stage in most causal explanations. Popular accounts tend to focus on economic conditions; America’s individualist culture; its history of slavery, segregation, and racism; and conservative political preferences regarding prohibition and retribution. To fix incarceration, it’s implied that America must change its conscience and support controls against racial bias, better social programs for the poor, drug decriminalization, and less punitive policing.
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