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5 Punishment & Soc'y 5 (2003)

handle is hein.journals/punscty5 and id is 1 raw text is: Copyright O SAGE Publications LondonThousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi. Vol 5(l): 5-32 [1462-4745(200301)5:1;5-32; 029290] PUNISHMENT & SOCIETY Popular support for the prison build-up BERT USEEM, RAYMOND V. LIEDKA AND ANNE MORRISON PIEHL University of New Mexico and Harvard University, USA A bstract A substantial build-up in prison capacity and the use of incarceration in the USA began in the mid-1970s and continued through to the end of the century. Researchers generally agree that a broad-based social movement supported the build-up, but disagree over the core features of the movement. Some researchers argue that it was the by-product of social discontents associated with rapid social change. Other researchers contend that the movement was an instance of purposeful people seeking solutions to a problem. Across several data sets, little evidence is found to support the position that advocates of the prison build-up had suffered from recent social changes. Instead, the evidence suggests that people supported the build-up for instrumental reasons. Key Words prison build-up - New Penology - social movements However one calculates the numbers, the late part of the 20th century saw a massive increase in the extent of incarceration in the USA. From 1972 until 2000, for example, the number incarcerated per 100,000 population went from 93 to 478, an increase of more than 400 percent. Much recent scholarship on this build-up has focused on its effects. One literature emphasizes the importance of prison for crime control asking, in the first place, if higher imprisonment rates caused lower crime rates, net other factors (Spelman, 2000, for a review). Another literature raises broad questions about the meaning and place of imprisonment in modem society, emphasizing its functions other than crime control. For analyses of the consequences of the current levels of incarcera- tion, the cause of the build-up is a central question. Some scholars see the prison build-up as growing out of the discontents and social problems of modem society. For example, in The Culture of Control, David Garland develops a broad account of the role of imprisonment in modem society. While the argument is complex and draws on an impressive array of sources, the core point can be straightforwardly stated: the prison build-up was the product of a reactionary social