Why is America So Punitive? A Report on the Deliberations of The Interdisciplinary Roundtable on Punitiveness in America

• In Event: Roundtable: Punishment in America--How Cruel and How Unusual?

Abstract

In April 2015, a group of 32 national and international scholars met at John Jay College for two days to address a complex and profound question: “Why is America so punitive”? This question comes at a critical time in American history. A new national consensus is emerging that America should reduce its levels of incarceration, reform police practices, cut back on the extent of criminal justice supervision, and address the alienation between the justice system and the public, particularly communities of color. More fundamentally, there is renewed interest, from both ends of the political spectrum, to find ways to limit the exercise of state power in the name of crime control. At the same time, there is widespread recognition that achieving deep and lasting reform requires a new framework for how to respond to crime, the victims of crime, and those who violate the law – a framework that the public understands and embraces. Given this sense of simultaneous optimism and challenge, the time seemed ripe for a discussion of American views on punishment. The Interdisciplinary Roundtable was created in the hopes that a group of distinguished scholars, representing different disciplines, perspectives and countries, could help shape this important national discussion.

Author

• Bettina Muenster, John Jay College of Criminal Justice