TY - BOOK
T1 - American exceptionalism in crime and punishment
AU - Reitz, Kevin R.
PY - 2017/12/21
Y1 - 2017/12/21
N2 - The idea of American exceptionalism has made frequent appearances in discussions of criminal justice policies-as it has in many other areas-to help portray or explain problems that are especially acute in the United States, including mass incarceration, retention of the death penalty, racial and ethnic disparities in punishment, and the War on Drugs. While scholars do not universally agree that it is an apt or useful framework, there is no question that the United States is an outlier compared with other industrialized democracies in its punitive and exclusionary criminal justice policies. This book deepens the debate on American exceptionalism in crime and punishment through comparative political, economic, and historical analyses, working toward forward-looking prescriptions for American law, policy, and institutions of government. The chapters expand the existing American Exceptionalism literature to neglected areas such as community supervision, economic penalties, parole release, and collateral consequences of conviction; explore claims of causation, in particular that the history of slavery and racial inequality has been a primary driver of crime policy; examine arguments that the framework of multiple governments and localized crime control, populist style of democracy, and laissez-faire economy are implicated in problems of both crime and punishment; and assess theories that cultural values are the most salient predictors of penal severity and violent crime. The book asserts that the largest problems of crime and justice cannot be brought into focus from the perspective of a single jurisdiction and that comparative inquiries are necessary for an understanding of the current predicament in the United States.
AB - The idea of American exceptionalism has made frequent appearances in discussions of criminal justice policies-as it has in many other areas-to help portray or explain problems that are especially acute in the United States, including mass incarceration, retention of the death penalty, racial and ethnic disparities in punishment, and the War on Drugs. While scholars do not universally agree that it is an apt or useful framework, there is no question that the United States is an outlier compared with other industrialized democracies in its punitive and exclusionary criminal justice policies. This book deepens the debate on American exceptionalism in crime and punishment through comparative political, economic, and historical analyses, working toward forward-looking prescriptions for American law, policy, and institutions of government. The chapters expand the existing American Exceptionalism literature to neglected areas such as community supervision, economic penalties, parole release, and collateral consequences of conviction; explore claims of causation, in particular that the history of slavery and racial inequality has been a primary driver of crime policy; examine arguments that the framework of multiple governments and localized crime control, populist style of democracy, and laissez-faire economy are implicated in problems of both crime and punishment; and assess theories that cultural values are the most salient predictors of penal severity and violent crime. The book asserts that the largest problems of crime and justice cannot be brought into focus from the perspective of a single jurisdiction and that comparative inquiries are necessary for an understanding of the current predicament in the United States.
KW - American exceptionalism
KW - Criminal justice
KW - Death penalty
KW - Ethnic disparity
KW - Mass incarceration
KW - Racial disparity
KW - War on Drugs
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85038943837&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85038943837&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/oso/9780190203542.001.0001
DO - 10.1093/oso/9780190203542.001.0001
M3 - Book
AN - SCOPUS:85038943837
SN - 9780190203542
BT - American exceptionalism in crime and punishment
PB - Oxford University Press
ER -