So policy makers drive incarceration-Now what?
So policy makers drive incarceration-Now what?
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1745-9133.2011.00710.x
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发表时间：
2011-05-01
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Bushway, Shawn D.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bushway, Shawn D.
Public Policy to a descriptive, informal time series analysis by Webster, Doob, and Zimring (2006) on incarceration policy in California (Bushway and McDowall, 2006). In the essay, we argued that Webster, Doob, and Zimring should have used formal time series techniques designed for this type of causal analysis. Four years later, I find myself once again responding in Criminology &Public Policy to a largely descriptive, informal time series analysis on incarceration policy in California by two of the same authors (Gartner, Doob, and Zimring, 2011, this issue). It is tempting to repeat myself. However, I find myself largely uninterested in the central question answerable by time series analysis. Time series analysis can tell us whether the onset of Ronald Reagan's governorship was associated with a decrease in the California incarceration rate. Time series analysis cannot tell us which policy changes caused the dramatic change in incarceration rate. The latter question is far more interesting than the former. Although social science is at times hard pressed to identify and distinguish real change from noise, this issue is not, unfortunately, the problem when it comes to incarceration rates in the United States. It has been well documented that incarceration rates have increased dramatically in the United States and that this change is not part of the normal incarceration process in this country. Furthermore, a real and genuine consensus now exists that the boom is largely the result of policy changes (Blumstein and Beck, 1999; Pfaff, 2008; Raphael and Stoll, 2009; Sabol, 2010; Spelman, 2009).
