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Copyright O SAGE Publications
LondonThousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi.
Vol 5(l): 5-32
[1462-4745(200301)5:1;5-32; 029290]
PUNISHMENT
& SOCIETY
Popular support for the
prison build-up
BERT USEEM, RAYMOND V. LIEDKA AND ANNE MORRISON PIEHL
University of New Mexico and Harvard University, USA
A bstract
A substantial build-up in prison capacity and the use of incarceration in the USA
began in the mid-1970s and continued through to the end of the century. Researchers
generally agree that a broad-based social movement supported the build-up, but
disagree over the core features of the movement. Some researchers argue that it was
the by-product of social discontents associated with rapid social change. Other
researchers contend that the movement was an instance of purposeful people seeking
solutions to a problem. Across several data sets, little evidence is found to support the
position that advocates of the prison build-up had suffered from recent social changes.
Instead, the evidence suggests that people supported the build-up for instrumental
reasons.
Key Words
prison build-up - New Penology - social movements
However one calculates the numbers, the late part of the 20th century saw a massive
increase in the extent of incarceration in the USA. From 1972 until 2000, for example,
the number incarcerated per 100,000 population went from 93 to 478, an increase of
more than 400 percent. Much recent scholarship on this build-up has focused on its
effects. One literature emphasizes the importance of prison for crime control asking, in
the first place, if higher imprisonment rates caused lower crime rates, net other factors
(Spelman, 2000, for a review). Another literature raises broad questions about the
meaning and place of imprisonment in modem society, emphasizing its functions other
than crime control. For analyses of the consequences of the current levels of incarcera-
tion, the cause of the build-up is a central question.
Some scholars see the prison build-up as growing out of the discontents and social
problems of modem society. For example, in The Culture of Control, David Garland
develops a broad account of the role of imprisonment in modem society. While the
argument is complex and draws on an impressive array of sources, the core point can be
straightforwardly stated: the prison build-up was the product of a reactionary social](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/punscty5&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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