Decoding Justice: Tough-on-Violent-Crime Politics in the Era of Criminal Justice Reform

• In Event: How Should STS Address Inequality? As a Subject, a (Dis)Value)? Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives - I

Abstract

My paper examines the 21st century criminal justice reform movement, arguing that—despite unbridled fanfare over the bipartisan reformist consensus—the recent reform movement has given rise to what I call tough-on-violent-crime (TOVC) politics. TOVC politics predicates the decarceration of nonviolent offenders on the continued caging of “violent” offenders, and is packaged as an exit strategy from costly and racially-disparate mass incarceration. Reposing on conceptions of dangerousness, TOVC politics employs predictive technologies such as risk assessment tools to cement the bifurcation between nonviolent and violent offenses. These tools, though supposedly “objective,” have masked ongoing racial disparities in the name of objectivity.

This paper explores these dynamics through a case study of New Jersey, which presents an ideal “hard” test case because of the extent to which it has been praised as particularly successful in the war against mass incarceration. New Jersey has reduced its prison population by 36 percent since 1999, doing so through extensive implementation of risk-based technologies and the release of exclusively low level offenders. This has left a still-substantial prison population largely composed of those convicted of “violent offenses,” leaving the current TOCV reformist paradigm with little room to further reduce mass incarceration. Further, though TOVC politics promises to reduce racial disparities, New Jersey’s racial disparities have held steady across time, suggesting the limits of TOVC politics to make a dent in racial disparities. The paper employs a mixed-methods approach, drawing on archival research, the tools of critical race theory and political science, and data analysis.

Author

• Micah Richard Herskind, Princeton University