Over the last several decades, the criminal justice system has undergone historic transformations in the thinking and practice of sentencing and corrections. The basic facts are these: Throughout much of the 20th century, the guiding principle of corrections was rehabilitation, a utilitarian philosophy of criminal justice implemented through indeterminate sentencing models. The idea behind this approach was that the duration of incarceration was immaterial, so long as offenders emerged from prison rehabilitated. The 1970s gave way to a new approach, “just deserts” a philosophy grounded in the idea that sentencing and corrections should prioritize retribution over offender rehabilitation. The implementing mechanisms for this philosophy were determinate sentencing models. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, sentencing practices underwent yet another paradigm shift, transitioning from ‘just deserts” to crime-control models.
Overall, Criminal justice academics trace the paradigm shifts in the criminal justice system, in part, to evolving attitudes toward four interconnected, but at times conflicting, goals at the core of the sentencing process: retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and incapacitation. With respect to retribution, scholars point to the “just deserts” philosophy: criminals should be punished in accordance with societal notions of fairness and justice; nothing more, nothing less. The remaining three objectives reflect utilitarian principles, emphasizing best practices for promoting public safety. They differ, however, relative to the recommended sentencing model for securing public safety. For example, deterrence is predicated on the assumption that legal sanctions for criminal offenses should track the severity of the crime. From this perspective, legal sanctions should sync with the dual goals of both motivating the offender (specific deterrence) and the public-at-large (general deterrence) to abstain from future criminality. Meanwhile, incapacitation promotes public safety by depriving offenders of the wherewithal to engage in criminality by virtue of their physical detention within prison walls. In contrast, rehabilitation draws on restorative justice principles, emphasizing sentencing models that promote public safety through efforts to modify offender behavior so that they do not commit future crimes, and, thus, successfully reintegrate into society.
Perhaps the most significant implication of the changes in philosophy in the thinking and practice of sentencing and corrections has been the politicization of the criminal justice system. For example, under the indeterminate sentencing model, judges, parole boards and correctional officials had broad discretion to regulate prison populations and decide the appropriate legal sanctions on a case-by-case basis. In contrast, the introduction of mandatory minimum sentencing laws shifted discretion over punishment from criminal justice professionals to prosecutors and legislatures. As a consequence, today, politicians are more directly involved in the operational decisions of criminal justice, which has forced them to take responsibility for the decisions made by criminal justice system professionals.
It is no surprise then that these changes have tracked with increases in both incarceration rates, generally, and the number of people in the U.S. who are under correctional supervision (i.e. parole and probation), particularly (Bonczar and Glaze, 2000). For example, Blumstein and Beck (1999) analyzed the impact of the crime-control sentencing models that replaced the indeterminate sentencing models popular in the 1970s. Their findings were revealing: only 12 percent of the increase in the prison population could be attributed to a higher number of committed criminal acts, with the remainder of the growth rate (eighty-eight percent) reducible to the imposition of more severe legal sanctions, jailing more offenders, and increasing time served.
It is also of little surprise that at the same time that incarceration rates have been on the rise, the cost of corrections has also increased. Less certain, however, is whether the well-documented transformations in sentencing, release decisions, and the size of the prison populations have tracked improvements in public safety. Phrased another way: Have reforms in the philosophy and practice of sentencing and corrections translated into appreciable effects on crime, recidivism and public safety? Admittedly, the answer is unclear because it has been well documented that other factors affect crime and incarceration rates. Indeed, both experience and theory indicate that there is no simple association between the two.
In either case, it appears that the least effective sentencing models have been the sentencing structures that disproportionally impact minority populations. These include sentencing structures such as mandatory-minimum laws, sentencing enhancements, three-strikes laws, and truth-in-sentencing laws that eliminate possibility for parole release, requiring inmates to serve longer sentences. Evaluations of the effects of these sentencing guidelines show that much of the overrepresentation of African-Americans in the U.S. population is reducible to these policies. Criminal justice academics cite at least two explanations for these statistics. First, the war on drugs has disproportionately targeted African-Americans. Secondly, three-strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and truth-in-sentencing laws increase the length of time offenders convicted of violent offenses must serve in prison. Unfortunately, African-Americans are overrepresented in the number of people arrested for violent crimes, and, thus, they are disproportionately impacted by changes in laws relating to these offenses. It is unclear if these policies are reducible to benign neglect (failure to consider the implications of these policies) or indifferent attitudes toward the underclass (as suggested by what Feeley and Simon describe as the new penology).
References
Blumstein, A., and A.J. Beck. (1999). Population growth in U.S. prisons, 1980-1996, in
Prisons, ed. M. Tonry and J. Petersilia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bonczar, T.P., and L.E. Glaze. (2000). Probation and Parole in the United States, 1998,
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Schmalleger, Frank, and J. Smykla. (2012). Corrections in the 21st Century New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Zimring, F.E. (2000). “The New Politics of Criminal Justice: Of Three Strikes, Truth-in-
Sentencing and Megan’s Law,” paper presented to the Perspectives on Crime and Justice: 1999–2000 lecture series, National Institute of Justice, Washington, D.C.
