NCJ Number: 183337
Title: From the Big House to the Warehouse: Rethinking Prisons and State Government in the 20th Century
Journal: Punishment and Society Volume:2 Issue:2 Dated:April 2000 Pages:213-234
Author(s): Jonathan Simon
Date Published: April 2000
Page Count: 22
Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
Format: Article
Language: English
Country: United States of America
Annotation: This article draws on four books to provide an account of the
rapid growth of State prison populations in terms of the
breakdown of the New Deal State, and its replacement by a new
model of governing called the "Initiative State."
Abstract: The books involved are "The Powers That Punish: Prison and
Politics in the Era of the 'Big House' 1920-1955," by Charles
Bright (1994); "The Rise and Fall of California's Radical Prison
Movement," by Eric Cummins (1994); "Paradise Lost: California's
Experience, America's Future," by Peter Schrag (1998); and
"Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster,"
by Mike Davis (1998). Recent research that used multiple
regression techniques to examine State and prison populations
suggests that in otherwise similar States, the views of the
governor on prison has a large influence on relative imprisonment
rates. Recent research also suggests that the war on drugs and
its promises of lengthy prison sentences for thousands of
small-time drug criminals was mobilized primarily by politicians
who led rather than followed public opinion on this issue.
Bright's framework for thinking about State government and penal
policy offers a way of seeing the relationship between the two
accounts. Bright's analysis suggests that penal narratives are
not simply the ideological superstructure of some more basic
structure of State government or politics, but rather an
important site for the co-production of successful strategies for
governing States in the 20th century. Some States have remained
remarkably free of massive investment in prison populations,
institutions, and cultures. In most States, minority communities,
which are typically the hardest hit by the social costs of the
"initiative State's" penal strategies, have the capacity to bring
concentrated political pressure to bear on government in a way
nearly impossible at the level of national politics. The works
canvassed here suggest that we also need to conduct careful
analysis of individual States, not just for the ideology of their
governors but for the organization of political power in the
State. 20 notes and 41 references
Main Term(s): Corrections policies
Index Term(s): Incarceration; Sentencing/Sanctions; State government
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