The political analysis of mass incarceration

Abstract

The past several decades have seen a tremendous increase in the U.S. incarceration rate, with varying trends in other advanced industrial democracies. These developments have only recently begun to attract the attention of political scientists. This chapter provides a critical review of recent literature on mass incarceration by both political scientists and scholars in related disciplines, and a discussion of directions for further research. I argue that further work in this area should involve theoretically informed analysis of interactions between criminal justice experts and professionals, elected politicians, and the public at large, with particular attention to how public concerns about crime are parsed and interpreted by public officials in the making of penal policy.

Citation

Hovde, P. (2010), "The political analysis of mass incarceration", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Studies in Law, Politics and Society (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 53), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 111-135. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2010)0000053008