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27 Crim. Just. Pol'y Rev. 3 (2016)

handle is hein.journals/cjpr27 and id is 1 raw text is: Article Criminal Justice Policy Review 2016, Vol. 27(l)3-21 Psychiatric © 2014 SAGE Publications Reprints and permissions: Deinstitutionalization and sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1 177/0887403414547043 Prison Population Growth: A cjp.sagepub.com Critical Literature Review and *SAGE Its Implications Dae-Young Kim' Abstract A substantial amount of research has been devoted to explaining the reasons behind the unprecedented explosion of U.S. prison populations. While the majority of prior studies related imprisonment to four factors-specifically crimes, changes in the labor markets, politics, and demographic changes-other relevant factors have not received as much attention. In the historical context of decreases in mental hospital populations resulting from psychiatric deinstitutionalization, imprisonment rates have skyrocketed nationwide since the late I 970s. This inverse relationship between both trends has called for prior research that empirically examines the impact of mental hospitalization on imprisonment, especially through the criminalization of mental illness. However, empirical findings are equivocal in general at the aggregate level. This article conducts a comprehensive and critical literature review, discusses the important conceptual and methodological limitations of the existing literature, and finally provides guidance for future research. Keywords jail/prison, mental hospital, psychiatric deinstitutionalization, trans-institutionalization, social control Introduction Over the past three decades, there has been a large and growing amount of scholarly attention devoted toward explaining the reasons behind the unprecedented growth of 'State University of New York-Buffalo State, USA Corresponding Author: Dae-Young Kim, Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice Department, State University of New York-Buffalo State, 1300 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo, NY 14222, USA. Email: kimd@buffalostate.edu