Historical Perspectives on Crime and Punishment II

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

This second panel of historical perspectives broadens our understanding of criminal justice history. Substantively, these papers examine a wide range of crime and punishment history, from the first decades of the nineteenth century to the first decades of the twenty-first century. Methodologically, these papers are partly genealogical, revealing how what used to be shapes and challenges contemporaries’ understandings of what is or ought to be. Most centrally, however, these papers emphasize the link between macro-level phenomena (culture, beliefs, attitudes, norms) and micro-level phenomena (the actual behavior of criminal justice actors, their support for or creation of different policies, and the experiences of punishment). They trace the role of crime fear, understandings of race, optimism and pessimism regarding punishment, and expectations about penal design in shaping the experiences, attitudes, and behavior of criminal justice actors, including prisoners, reformers, court and prison administrators.

Sub Unit

• Area VI. Comparative and Historical Perspectives / 51. Historical Comparisons

Individual Presentations

• "Today They Kill With The Chair Instead Of The Tree": Prisoners’ Conceptions of Race and Criminal Justice at Angola - Liam Kennedy, University of Toronto

• “A Disgrace to the State”: Reforming Local Jails in the Late 19th Century - Stephen E. Tillotson, Indiana University, Bloomington

• The “New Interventionism” and the Contemporary Juvenile Justice System’s Approach to Intensive Community Supervision - Michael Schlossman, William Paterson University

• Exceptions to the Trend: The Construction and Consequences of Organizational Deviance - Ashley T. Rubin, Florida State University

Chair

• Michael C. Campbell, University of Missouri - St. Louis