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Penal populism is a media driven political process whereby politicians compete with each other to impose tougher prison sentences on offenders based on a perception that crime is out of control.[1] It tends to manifest in the run up to elections when political parties put forward hard-line policies which they believe the public wants, rather than evidence-based policies based on their effectiveness at dealing with crime and associated social problems.[2]

Origins

The phrase was coined in 1993 by Anthony Bottoms,[3] when he labeled it one of the four main influences on contemporary criminal justice.[4] It is a process that ignores or minimizes the views of criminologists, justice professionals and penal experts, claiming instead to represent the views of “the people” about the need for tougher punishment for criminal offending.[5]

It has been theorized that the rise of penal populism has brought an increase in the repressiveness of various nation's criminal laws, including that of the UK,[6] Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper,[7] and the United States during the War on Drugs.[8] The resurgence of penal populism in the early twenty first century lead to streams of populism flowing deeper from penal fields into mainstream society. This shift from penal to political populism was precipitated by two interconnected factors: the impact of the 2008 global fiscal crisis and the mass movement of peoples across the globe. [9]

Scholars have claimed that the concept of penal populism may also imply an implicit form of penal elitism, that is, the "belief that penal policymaking should not be subjected to public debate and that matters pertaining to crime control and punishment should be left to experts or specialists."[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ Penal Populism
  2. ^ MARGARITA DOBRYNINA (June 2017). "The Roots of "Penal Populism": the Role of Media and Politics". Kriminologijos Studijos.
  3. ^ Karen Gelb (2014). Penal Populism, Sentencing Councils and Sentencing Policy. Routledge. p. 3. ISBN 9781317821847.
  4. ^ John Pratt (2007). Penal Populism. Taylor & Francis. p. 2. ISBN 9781134173297.
  5. ^ David Garland, What’s Wrong with Penal Populism? Politics, the Public, and Criminological Expertise, Asian Journal of Criminology volume 16, pages257–277 (2021)
  6. ^ David A. Green (2012). When Children Kill Children: Penal Populism and Political Culture. Oxford University Press. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-19-162976-1.
  7. ^ Kelly, James, & Kate Puddister. “Criminal Justice Policy during the Harper Era: Private Member’s Bills, Penal Populism, and the Criminal Code of Canada.” Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société 32, no. 3 (2017): 391-415. DOI: 10.1017/cls.2017.25
  8. ^ Julian V. Roberts, Loretta J. Stalans, David Indermaur, Mike Hough (2002). Penal Populism and Public Opinion: Lessons from Five Countries. University of Oxford Press. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-19-028577-7.((cite book)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ John Pratt & Michelle Miao (2017). "Penal Populism: The End of Reason". The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 2017-02, 9 (13) Nova Criminis 71-105 (2017). SSRN 2903819.
  10. ^ Shammas, Victor L. (1 December 2020). "Penal Elitism: Anatomy of a Professorial Ideology". Critical Criminology. 28 (4): 759–774. doi:10.1007/s10612-019-09463-7. hdl:10852/74761. ISSN 1572-9877.


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