Mass Incarceration - essay goal
legal change (4) -> why penal change
national theory -> local / cultural theory
explore how to use reduced phenomenon to do something with global / national
Accepted Explanation: 1970 increase incarceration
using state social / political variable as predictor
Flaws
Result of flaws
1975: symbolic policy -> pragmatic and realistic criminal justice policy
no workable plan for finance punishment
law makers are not rational
indicates that incarceration has more to do with culture, social, political force than policy
two solution: reduce crime in prison
construct more prison (actually done, although irrational)
reduce prisoners
Two Changes
no use of parole release
increase likelihood of return to prison among releases
local: Least explored, most interesting
plea bargaining: saying that I am wrong to reduce incarceration
constrain plea bargaining time to earlier
result: hard to plea bargaining in felony (even earlier)
Difference between county exists:
Kern County were more than 13 times likely to sentence under 3 strikes law than San Francisco County courts.
saturation 20% countries are occupies 80% punishment for a specific law
local application varies by
Local can cause national legal policy: Prisoner Litigation Reform Act of 1995
localized conflict inspire national law makers
law changes can be based on local political culture or specific event or cases
sentencing policy start from a region and expand outward
Purpose: Avoid simple cause-effect model Solution:
implement past implementation (as time is a strong predictive association with mass incarceration)
local historical past differs from states to states, therefore one solution might not be good for all states
Examples:
allow use of prisoner program savings -> less people in prison
less prosecutes (community based, local politics) - innovative
build up community empathy by current policy
Local is more feasible.
implication for local / national policy formulation
local aggregation is better at explaining because law existing in local level (reductionism)
methodological issue?
assume quantitative variable
assume consistent with time and place (assumption by aggregating data)
assume one direction influence (cause)
are there features of “legal change” that are higher level “social facts” that causally influence the situation but don’t reduce to individual
according to the phrasing of the article, "politics, public sentiment, economics" might not be reduce-able.
according to my interpretation, any larger concepts (public sentiment) can be described by aggregation of individuals
individualist vs. holist
using the word "culture" is just a easy way to describe most people's common ideology.
I think the whole article is more on reduction side
what is "theoretical and policy implication"
by understanding causal factor, we can implement solutions easier
Solution:
implement past implementation (as time is a strong predictive association with mass incarceration)
local historical past differs from states to states, therefore one solution might not be good for all states
what kind of evidence
logical evidence: to suggest causal factor
imperial evidence: to suggest positive relationship
"microlevel" to local level justification
mostly depend on author's ontological view
the suggestions are not empirically based (they are suggestions, never tried on the exact situation, otherwise won't be suggestions)
"victim-named" laws worth funding?
worth funding in some cases, but not other
case specific: "victim-named" might not be "adhoc" in a way that it only solves a specific case. You should not evaluate the validity of a law based on its inspiration (whether its on micro level or national level)
group position: justification: potential objections: points of contention:
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