IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v651y2014i1p266-276.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Locked In? Conservative Reform and the Future of Mass Incarceration

Author

Listed:
  • David Dagan
  • Steven M. Teles

Abstract

The dominant implication of the carceral state literature is that path-breaking change is impossible through ordinary politics, reducing the options to either acquiescence or a level of mass mobilization not seen in decades. Over the last decade, however, activists have generated a surge of agitation for carceral reform, especially at the state level. In a twist the scholarly literature did not anticipate, much of that energy is coming from the Right. The theoretical flaw underlying the scholarly pessimism is a focus on the way policies entrench themselves through positive feedback, without commensurate attention to negative feedback. We argue the balance of feedback is shifting to the negative side in the case of mass incarceration. To seriously shrink the prison population, however, conservatives will have to accept the construction of alternative government structures; liberals will have to accept that these will remain more paternalistic than they might like.

Suggested Citation

  • David Dagan & Steven M. Teles, 2014. "Locked In? Conservative Reform and the Future of Mass Incarceration," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 651(1), pages 266-276, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:651:y:2014:i:1:p:266-276
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716213502935
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716213502935
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716213502935?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Schmitt & Kris Warner & Sarika Gupta, 2010. "The High Budgetary Cost of Incarceration," CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs 2010-14, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
    2. Weaver, Kent, 2010. "Paths and Forks or Chutes and Ladders?: Negative Feedbacks and Policy Regime Change," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(2), pages 137-162, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sara Wakefield & Hedwig Lee & Christopher Wildeman, 2016. "Tough on Crime, Tough on Families? Criminal Justice and Family Life in America," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 665(1), pages 8-21, May.
    2. Heather Schoenfeld, 2016. "A Research Agenda on Reform," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 664(1), pages 155-174, March.
    3. Katherine Beckett & Anna Reosti & Emily Knaphus, 2016. "The End of an Era? Understanding the Contradictions of Criminal Justice Reform," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 664(1), pages 238-259, March.
    4. Michael Leo Owens, 2014. "Ex-Felons’ Organization-Based Political Work for Carceral Reforms," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 651(1), pages 256-265, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kasper Ampe & Erik Paredis & Lotte Asveld & Patricia Osseweijer & Thomas Block, 2021. "Power struggles in policy feedback processes: incremental steps towards a circular economy within Dutch wastewater policy," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(3), pages 579-607, September.
    2. Daniel Béland & Michael Howlett & Philip Rocco & Alex Waddan, 2020. "Designing policy resilience: lessons from the Affordable Care Act," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 53(2), pages 269-289, June.
    3. Kegon Teng Kok Tan & Mariyana Zapryanova, 2019. "The Role of Prison in Recidivism," Working Papers 2019-083, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    4. Katherine Eriksson, 2015. "Access to Schooling and the Black-White Incarceration Gap in the Early 20th Century US South: Evidence from Rosenwald Schools," NBER Working Papers 21727, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Cherrie Bucknor & Alan Barber, 2016. "The Price We Pay: Economic Costs of Barriers to Employment for Former Prisoners and People Convicted of Felonies," CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs 2016-07, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
    6. Carrera, Leandro & Angelaki, Marina, 2022. "The politics of pension policy responses to COVID-19: comparative insights from Chile, Bolivia and Peru," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116666, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Edmondson, Duncan L. & Kern, Florian & Rogge, Karoline S., 2019. "The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(10).
    8. Christoph H. Stefes, 2020. "Opposing Energy Transitions: Modeling the Contested Nature of Energy Transitions in the Electricity Sector," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 37(3), pages 292-312, May.
    9. Brendan Moore & Andrew Jordan, 2020. "Disaggregating the dependent variable in policy feedback research: an analysis of the EU Emissions Trading System," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 53(2), pages 291-307, June.
    10. Florian Baumann & Tim Friehe, 2013. "Cheap Talk About The Detection Probability," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(01), pages 1-16.
    11. John Schmitt & Kris Warner, 2010. "The High Budgetary Cost of Incarceration," CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs 2010-28, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
    12. Eicke, Laima & Weko, Silvia, 2022. "Does green growth foster green policies? Value chain upgrading and feedback mechanisms on renewable energy policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    13. Grace Skogstad, 2020. "Mixed feedback dynamics and the USA renewable fuel standard: the roles of policy design and administrative agency," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 53(2), pages 349-369, June.
    14. Adam Hannah, 2021. "Procedural tools and pension reform in the long run: the case of Sweden [The new politics of the welfare state? A case study of extra-parliamentary party politics in Norway]," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 40(3), pages 362-378.
    15. Hamish van der Ven & Steven Bernstein & Matthew Hoffmann, 2017. "Valuing the Contributions of Nonstate and Subnational Actors to Climate Governance," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(1), pages 1-20, February.
    16. Roberts, Cameron & Geels, Frank W., 2019. "Conditions for politically accelerated transitions: Historical institutionalism, the multi-level perspective, and two historical case studies in transport and agriculture," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 221-240.
    17. Yue Guo & Lei Zhou & Jidong Chen, 2023. "The persuasive role of the past: Policy feedback and citizens' acceptance of information communication technologies during the COVID‐19 pandemic in China," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 40(4), pages 573-588, July.
    18. Burroughs, Richard, 2015. "Feedback switching and the evolution of U.S. coastal management," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 94-100.
    19. Mitchell Polinsky, A., 2015. "Deterrence and the optimality of rewarding prisoners for good behavior," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-7.
    20. Pierson, Paul, 2011. "The welfare state over the very long run," Working papers of the ZeS 02/2011, University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:651:y:2014:i:1:p:266-276. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.