Efforts to standardize sentences and eliminate disparities in a state or the federal system cannot succeed; distinctive practices and norms, diverse local cultures, and practical and political needs of officials and agencies assure major local differences in sentencing practice. Presumptive sentencing guidelines developed by sentencing commissions, however, are the most effective means to improve consistency, reduce disparity, and control corrections spending. Federal sentencing guidelines have been remarkably unsuccessful; they should be rebuilt from the ground up. Mandatory sentencing laws should be repealed, and no new ones enacted; they produce countless injustices, encourage cynical circumventions, and seldom achieve demonstrable reductions in crime. Black and Hispanic defendants are more likely than whites and Asians to be sentenced to imprisonment, and for longer; presumptive sentencing guidelines reduced racial disparities initially and over time, but most states do not have presumptive guidelines. Use of predictions of dangerousness to determine who is imprisoned and for how long is unjust; predictive accuracy has improved little in 50 years and current methods too often lengthen prison terms of people who would not have committed violent crimes. Except in the handful of states that have effective systems of presumptive sentencing guidelines, parole release is an essential component of a just and cost-effective sentencing system in the United States.
{"title":"Fifty Years of American Sentencing Reform: Nine Lessons","authors":"M. Tonry","doi":"10.1086/701798","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701798","url":null,"abstract":"Efforts to standardize sentences and eliminate disparities in a state or the federal system cannot succeed; distinctive practices and norms, diverse local cultures, and practical and political needs of officials and agencies assure major local differences in sentencing practice. Presumptive sentencing guidelines developed by sentencing commissions, however, are the most effective means to improve consistency, reduce disparity, and control corrections spending. Federal sentencing guidelines have been remarkably unsuccessful; they should be rebuilt from the ground up. Mandatory sentencing laws should be repealed, and no new ones enacted; they produce countless injustices, encourage cynical circumventions, and seldom achieve demonstrable reductions in crime. Black and Hispanic defendants are more likely than whites and Asians to be sentenced to imprisonment, and for longer; presumptive sentencing guidelines reduced racial disparities initially and over time, but most states do not have presumptive guidelines. Use of predictions of dangerousness to determine who is imprisoned and for how long is unjust; predictive accuracy has improved little in 50 years and current methods too often lengthen prison terms of people who would not have committed violent crimes. Except in the handful of states that have effective systems of presumptive sentencing guidelines, parole release is an essential component of a just and cost-effective sentencing system in the United States.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"1 - 34"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701798","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42533148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Model Penal Code: Sentencing (MPCS) rewrites the 1962 Model Penal Code’s provisions on sentencing and corrections. Since the 1960s, use of all forms of punishment has exploded, including incarceration, community supervision, supervision revocation, economic sanctions, and collateral consequences of convictions. The MPCS provides an institutional framework for all major forms of punishment. It consists of a sentencing commission, sentencing guidelines, abolition of parole release discretion, appellate sentence review, and controls on correctional population size. It revamps sentencing procedures to inject greater fairness and transparency. It gives state legislators broad advice on how they can reform their systems as a whole, while improving decisions in each case. The MPCS recommends newly crafted limits on punishment through reasoned pursuit of utilitarian crime reduction goals, prohibition of disproportionate sentence severity, individualization of sentences that cuts through even mandatory minimum penalties, refinement of each type of punishment so it can achieve its core purposes, an attack on “criminogenic” sentences that do more harm than good, measures to prioritize and direct correctional resources to offenders who present the greatest risks and highest needs, and creation of institutional capacity to monitor, manage, and improve the entire system over time.
{"title":"Model Penal Code: Sentencing—Workable Limits on Mass Punishment","authors":"K. Reitz, Cecelia M. Klingele","doi":"10.1086/701796","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701796","url":null,"abstract":"The Model Penal Code: Sentencing (MPCS) rewrites the 1962 Model Penal Code’s provisions on sentencing and corrections. Since the 1960s, use of all forms of punishment has exploded, including incarceration, community supervision, supervision revocation, economic sanctions, and collateral consequences of convictions. The MPCS provides an institutional framework for all major forms of punishment. It consists of a sentencing commission, sentencing guidelines, abolition of parole release discretion, appellate sentence review, and controls on correctional population size. It revamps sentencing procedures to inject greater fairness and transparency. It gives state legislators broad advice on how they can reform their systems as a whole, while improving decisions in each case. The MPCS recommends newly crafted limits on punishment through reasoned pursuit of utilitarian crime reduction goals, prohibition of disproportionate sentence severity, individualization of sentences that cuts through even mandatory minimum penalties, refinement of each type of punishment so it can achieve its core purposes, an attack on “criminogenic” sentences that do more harm than good, measures to prioritize and direct correctional resources to offenders who present the greatest risks and highest needs, and creation of institutional capacity to monitor, manage, and improve the entire system over time.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"255 - 311"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701796","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44244755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Predictions of dangerousness are more often wrong than right, use information they shouldn’t, and disproportionately damage minority offenders. Forty years ago, two-thirds of people predicted to be violent were not. For every two “true positives,” there were four “false positives.” Contemporary technology is little better: at best, three false positives for every two true positives. The best-informed specialists say that accuracy topped out a decade ago; further improvement is unlikely. All prediction instruments use ethically unjustifiable information. Most include variables such as youth and gender that are as unjust as race or eye color would be. No one can justly be blamed for being blue-eyed, young, male, or dark-skinned. All prediction instruments incorporate socioeconomic status variables that cause black, other minority, and disadvantaged offenders to be treated more harshly than white and privileged offenders. All use criminal history variables that are inflated for black and other minority offenders by deliberate and implicit bias, racially disparate practices, profiling, and drug law enforcement that targets minority individuals and neighborhoods.
{"title":"Predictions of Dangerousness in Sentencing: Déjà Vu All Over Again","authors":"M. Tonry","doi":"10.1086/701895","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701895","url":null,"abstract":"Predictions of dangerousness are more often wrong than right, use information they shouldn’t, and disproportionately damage minority offenders. Forty years ago, two-thirds of people predicted to be violent were not. For every two “true positives,” there were four “false positives.” Contemporary technology is little better: at best, three false positives for every two true positives. The best-informed specialists say that accuracy topped out a decade ago; further improvement is unlikely. All prediction instruments use ethically unjustifiable information. Most include variables such as youth and gender that are as unjust as race or eye color would be. No one can justly be blamed for being blue-eyed, young, male, or dark-skinned. All prediction instruments incorporate socioeconomic status variables that cause black, other minority, and disadvantaged offenders to be treated more harshly than white and privileged offenders. All use criminal history variables that are inflated for black and other minority offenders by deliberate and implicit bias, racially disparate practices, profiling, and drug law enforcement that targets minority individuals and neighborhoods.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"439 - 482"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701895","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42079835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An inhabited institutions perspective views institutions from the bottom up, as “inhabited” by individual and organizational actors who have agency, rather than as static, top-down structures. Criminal justice structures and policies, such as those that govern courts and their sentencing decisions, are dependent on court participants. From this perspective, several conclusions emerge. First, theory and methods in the study of courts and sentencing are out of balance: theories emphasize interpretation, culture, and processes, while empirical inquiries focus largely on statistical studies of aggregates and outcomes. Second, the inhabited institutions perspective blurs the lines between the discretions of specific participants such as prosecutors and judges. Rather than attempt to parse the discretion of individual actors, we should study the interactions that jointly produce discretionary decisions. Third, we should focus on specific organizational mechanisms that produce both uniformity and variation between courts. Finally, variation between courts in sentencing practices should be understood not as a nuisance in top-down imposition of sentencing policies, but as a valuable but underappreciated source of policy feedback and learning.
{"title":"Criminal Courts as Inhabited Institutions: Making Sense of Difference and Similarity in Sentencing","authors":"J. Ulmer","doi":"10.1086/701504","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701504","url":null,"abstract":"An inhabited institutions perspective views institutions from the bottom up, as “inhabited” by individual and organizational actors who have agency, rather than as static, top-down structures. Criminal justice structures and policies, such as those that govern courts and their sentencing decisions, are dependent on court participants. From this perspective, several conclusions emerge. First, theory and methods in the study of courts and sentencing are out of balance: theories emphasize interpretation, culture, and processes, while empirical inquiries focus largely on statistical studies of aggregates and outcomes. Second, the inhabited institutions perspective blurs the lines between the discretions of specific participants such as prosecutors and judges. Rather than attempt to parse the discretion of individual actors, we should study the interactions that jointly produce discretionary decisions. Third, we should focus on specific organizational mechanisms that produce both uniformity and variation between courts. Finally, variation between courts in sentencing practices should be understood not as a nuisance in top-down imposition of sentencing policies, but as a valuable but underappreciated source of policy feedback and learning.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"483 - 522"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701504","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46241730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since 1980, 22 state and federal jurisdictions have adopted sentencing guidelines. Nineteen still have them. No two systems are alike. Experience suggests that any well-designed system requires five core features: a permanent, balanced, independent, and adequately funded sentencing commission; typical-case presumptive sentences and departure criteria; a hybrid sentencing theory that recognizes both retributive and crime control purposes; balance between the competing benefits of rules and discretion; and sentence recommendations informed by resource and demographic impact assessments. Balance is needed in terms of commission composition, between conflicting sentencing purposes, between rules and discretion, and between the influence of the commission, the legislature, and case-level actors. Guidelines proponents disagree about a number of important issues. Some relate to which crimes and sentencing issues should be regulated. Others concern the design details that determine how the system actually works. It is clear, however, that preguidelines regimes of unstructured, highly discretionary sentencing are unacceptable and that commission-drafted guidelines, endorsed by the American Bar Association and the American Law Institute, are the only successful sentencing reform model. In four decades, no competing model of comparable detail and scope has been seriously proposed.
{"title":"Forty Years of American Sentencing Guidelines: What Have We Learned?","authors":"Richard S. Frase","doi":"10.1086/701503","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701503","url":null,"abstract":"Since 1980, 22 state and federal jurisdictions have adopted sentencing guidelines. Nineteen still have them. No two systems are alike. Experience suggests that any well-designed system requires five core features: a permanent, balanced, independent, and adequately funded sentencing commission; typical-case presumptive sentences and departure criteria; a hybrid sentencing theory that recognizes both retributive and crime control purposes; balance between the competing benefits of rules and discretion; and sentence recommendations informed by resource and demographic impact assessments. Balance is needed in terms of commission composition, between conflicting sentencing purposes, between rules and discretion, and between the influence of the commission, the legislature, and case-level actors. Guidelines proponents disagree about a number of important issues. Some relate to which crimes and sentencing issues should be regulated. Others concern the design details that determine how the system actually works. It is clear, however, that preguidelines regimes of unstructured, highly discretionary sentencing are unacceptable and that commission-drafted guidelines, endorsed by the American Bar Association and the American Law Institute, are the only successful sentencing reform model. In four decades, no competing model of comparable detail and scope has been seriously proposed.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"79 - 135"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701503","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49170524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Supreme Court decision in United States v. Booker seemed to portend a new era for federal sentencing. By making federal guidelines advisory rather than “mandatory,” and authorizing judges to critically review their development, Booker empowered judges to reject unsound guidelines. Booker has had, however, surprisingly little effect on sentence severity or imprisonment use. Sentencing below guideline ranges increased, but more from a general relaxation of guidelines’ restrictions than from reasoned rejection of unsound guidelines. They continue to exert gravitational pull. Inter-judge disparity, modestly reduced by the earlier guidelines, increased after Booker. The commission claims that racial disparities increased, but the evidence is mixed and controversial. Bias in judges’ decisions contributes less to racial disparity than do statutes and guidelines that disproportionately affect African Americans. Booker has the potential to reduce structural disparities caused by unsound guidelines. The federal system remains unbalanced, however, with control of sentencing concentrated largely in the hands of Congress and prosecutors rather than of the commission and judges. Only repeal of statutory mandatory minimums and many specific statutory directives to the commission will permit federal sentencing reform to work as intended.
{"title":"Federal Sentencing after Booker","authors":"P. Hofer","doi":"10.1086/701712","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701712","url":null,"abstract":"The Supreme Court decision in United States v. Booker seemed to portend a new era for federal sentencing. By making federal guidelines advisory rather than “mandatory,” and authorizing judges to critically review their development, Booker empowered judges to reject unsound guidelines. Booker has had, however, surprisingly little effect on sentence severity or imprisonment use. Sentencing below guideline ranges increased, but more from a general relaxation of guidelines’ restrictions than from reasoned rejection of unsound guidelines. They continue to exert gravitational pull. Inter-judge disparity, modestly reduced by the earlier guidelines, increased after Booker. The commission claims that racial disparities increased, but the evidence is mixed and controversial. Bias in judges’ decisions contributes less to racial disparity than do statutes and guidelines that disproportionately affect African Americans. Booker has the potential to reduce structural disparities caused by unsound guidelines. The federal system remains unbalanced, however, with control of sentencing concentrated largely in the hands of Congress and prosecutors rather than of the commission and judges. Only repeal of statutory mandatory minimums and many specific statutory directives to the commission will permit federal sentencing reform to work as intended.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"137 - 186"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701712","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47146035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The jury trial has long been a keystone of the American criminal justice system. Few defendants exercise their right to trial, however, and those who do tend to receive significantly harsher punishments if convicted. This phenomenon, known as a trial tax or, conversely, as a guilty plea discount, is one of the most profound and consistent findings in the empirical sentencing literature. Estimates of its magnitude differ across studies and jurisdictions, but it typically involves a two- to six-times increase in the odds of imprisonment and a 15–60 percent increase in average sentence length. Recent changes to American sentencing policy may have exacerbated plea-trial disparities, raising a host of moral, legal, and procedural questions about fair and equal treatment of defendants who exercise their right to trial.
{"title":"Trials and Tribulations: The Trial Tax and the Process of Punishment","authors":"B. Johnson","doi":"10.1086/701713","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701713","url":null,"abstract":"The jury trial has long been a keystone of the American criminal justice system. Few defendants exercise their right to trial, however, and those who do tend to receive significantly harsher punishments if convicted. This phenomenon, known as a trial tax or, conversely, as a guilty plea discount, is one of the most profound and consistent findings in the empirical sentencing literature. Estimates of its magnitude differ across studies and jurisdictions, but it typically involves a two- to six-times increase in the odds of imprisonment and a 15–60 percent increase in average sentence length. Recent changes to American sentencing policy may have exacerbated plea-trial disparities, raising a host of moral, legal, and procedural questions about fair and equal treatment of defendants who exercise their right to trial.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"313 - 363"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701713","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44935256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Blacks and Hispanics convicted of felonies are more likely than whites to receive prison sentences for their crimes, and they receive slightly longer sentences if imprisoned. Yet the majority of prior research compares sentencing decisions at a single point in time and does not give explicit attention to whether and how racial and ethnic disparities have changed. Decades of sentencing data from Minnesota, the federal courts, and a sample of large urban counties are used to assess the degree of change in racial and ethnic sentencing disparities since the 1980s. There has been some decline in the magnitude of racial and ethnic disparities, with changes in drug laws aligning with some of the reduction in disparity at the federal level. This trend, along with the pattern of findings from related studies, poses a challenge to prominent theoretical explanations of sentencing disparities, including racial threat theory and the focal concerns perspective. Each of four influential theoretical explanations of racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing includes significant empirical or logical shortcomings. Advancing theoretical understanding of racial and ethnic disparity will require new data that follow cases from the point of arrest through to final disposition and include information about citizenship and victims.
{"title":"Have Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Sentencing Declined?","authors":"Ryan D. King, Michael T. Light","doi":"10.1086/701505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701505","url":null,"abstract":"Blacks and Hispanics convicted of felonies are more likely than whites to receive prison sentences for their crimes, and they receive slightly longer sentences if imprisoned. Yet the majority of prior research compares sentencing decisions at a single point in time and does not give explicit attention to whether and how racial and ethnic disparities have changed. Decades of sentencing data from Minnesota, the federal courts, and a sample of large urban counties are used to assess the degree of change in racial and ethnic sentencing disparities since the 1980s. There has been some decline in the magnitude of racial and ethnic disparities, with changes in drug laws aligning with some of the reduction in disparity at the federal level. This trend, along with the pattern of findings from related studies, poses a challenge to prominent theoretical explanations of sentencing disparities, including racial threat theory and the focal concerns perspective. Each of four influential theoretical explanations of racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing includes significant empirical or logical shortcomings. Advancing theoretical understanding of racial and ethnic disparity will require new data that follow cases from the point of arrest through to final disposition and include information about citizenship and victims.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"365 - 437"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701505","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45597367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wars are related to subsequent violence in complex and at times contradictory ways. The relationships between war and postwar violence, recognized throughout history, have attracted the attention and concern of researchers, state officials, and policy makers and the broader public. Methodological challenges, however, limit the potential for isolating the precise circumstances under which war and postwar violence are causally related. The weight of the evidence indicates that war is often followed by increases in violence, but there are important exceptions to this pattern. Potential theoretical explanations for this relationship abound. The harmful effects of wars on the minds and bodies of those participating in them are less influential on postwar violence than are the damages wars do to postwar societies’ social and economic institutions, political legitimacy, and group relations. Preventing or reducing elevated rates of violence after wars is rarely a priority during peace negotiations. As a consequence, policies instituted as part of the peace-building process often fuel violent crime.
{"title":"War and Postwar Violence","authors":"R. Gartner, L. Kennedy","doi":"10.1086/696649","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/696649","url":null,"abstract":"Wars are related to subsequent violence in complex and at times contradictory ways. The relationships between war and postwar violence, recognized throughout history, have attracted the attention and concern of researchers, state officials, and policy makers and the broader public. Methodological challenges, however, limit the potential for isolating the precise circumstances under which war and postwar violence are causally related. The weight of the evidence indicates that war is often followed by increases in violence, but there are important exceptions to this pattern. Potential theoretical explanations for this relationship abound. The harmful effects of wars on the minds and bodies of those participating in them are less influential on postwar violence than are the damages wars do to postwar societies’ social and economic institutions, political legitimacy, and group relations. Preventing or reducing elevated rates of violence after wars is rarely a priority during peace negotiations. As a consequence, policies instituted as part of the peace-building process often fuel violent crime.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"47 1","pages":"1 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/696649","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46547169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Research findings on the psychological effects of solitary confinement have been strikingly consistent since the early nineteenth century. Studies have identified a wide range of frequently occurring adverse psychological reactions that commonly affect prisoners in isolation units. The prevalence of psychological distress is extremely high. Nonetheless, use of solitary confinement in the United States vastly increased in recent decades. Advocates defend its use, often citing two recent studies to support claims that isolation has no significant adverse psychological effects, including even on mentally ill people. Those studies, however, are fundamentally flawed, their results are not credible, and they should be disregarded. Critically and comprehensively analyzing the numerous flaws that compromise this recent scholarship underscores the distinction between methodological form and substance, the danger of privileging quantitative data irrespective of their quality, and the importance of considering the fraught nature of the prison context in which research results are actually generated. Solitary confinement has well-documented adverse effects. Its use should be eliminated entirely for some groups of prisoners and greatly reduced for others.
{"title":"The Psychological Effects of Solitary Confinement: A Systematic Critique","authors":"C. Haney","doi":"10.1086/696041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/696041","url":null,"abstract":"Research findings on the psychological effects of solitary confinement have been strikingly consistent since the early nineteenth century. Studies have identified a wide range of frequently occurring adverse psychological reactions that commonly affect prisoners in isolation units. The prevalence of psychological distress is extremely high. Nonetheless, use of solitary confinement in the United States vastly increased in recent decades. Advocates defend its use, often citing two recent studies to support claims that isolation has no significant adverse psychological effects, including even on mentally ill people. Those studies, however, are fundamentally flawed, their results are not credible, and they should be disregarded. Critically and comprehensively analyzing the numerous flaws that compromise this recent scholarship underscores the distinction between methodological form and substance, the danger of privileging quantitative data irrespective of their quality, and the importance of considering the fraught nature of the prison context in which research results are actually generated. Solitary confinement has well-documented adverse effects. Its use should be eliminated entirely for some groups of prisoners and greatly reduced for others.","PeriodicalId":51456,"journal":{"name":"Crime and Justice-A Review of Research","volume":"47 1","pages":"365 - 416"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/696041","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42521544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：