Reforming Mass Incarceration? An Agonistic Perspective on Contemporary Criminal Justice

• In Event: 536 - Section on Crime, Law and Deviance Paper Session. The End of the Beginning or the Beginning of the End? Race and Decarceration

Abstract

After four decades of steady growth, states’ prison populations finally appear to be declining, driven by a range of sentencing and policy reforms. At the same time, the politics of punishment have shifted, realigning old and new bedfellows. In this paper, we use an agonistic framework (Goodman, Page, & Phelps 2014) to understand the historical roots of these shifts. We argue that contemporary shifts are the result of a series of long-fought penal struggles, some of which date back to mid-20th century, or even earlier. To illustrate this perspective, we analyze two vignettes of struggle: the push to reform the Rockefeller drug laws and challenges to solitary confinement. Macro-level changes, including the political culture around crime and punishment, continued low crime rates, race relations, budget crises from the Great Recession, and pressures from federal courts, all created openings in the penal field; reformers seized these openings to gain visibility and influence, ultimately shifting criminal justice policies. Only in this broader historical context can we begin to make sense of what is happening across the U.S. today and how those movements might influence the policies and practices of the criminal justice system.

Authors

• Michelle S. Phelps, University of Minnesota

• Joshua Aaron Page, University of Minnesota

• Phil Goodman, University of Toronto