Doctoral Dissertation Research: Explaining Changes In Incarceration In California And Texas

项目摘要：本研究将解释加州和德克萨斯州在20世纪后期如何以及为什么实施了大幅增加监禁使用的政策。县级犯罪、人口统计、社会经济和选举数据将用于检查两个州投票模式的变化和对特定监狱政策的支持。大部分的研究将在加州的萨克拉门托和德克萨斯州的奥斯汀进行，那里的州档案包含了导致监狱扩张的各种制度和政治发展的大量文件。该项目将重点关注可能有助于解释监禁政策发展的两个变量的变化：与刑事司法系统本身有关的个人和组织日益增长的政治影响力，以及投票选民性质的变化。研究结果应该能让我们更清楚地了解犯罪率、不断变化的投票模式、社会和经济变化以及不断发展的监狱政策之间的关系。它将强调刑事司法系统参与者在形成犯罪控制政策方面的理论相关性，并将揭示往往过于简化的公众舆论概念及其在政策变化中的作用。在潜在影响的广泛层面上，该项目旨在通过强调与使用监狱作为一种犯罪控制策略有关的权力和影响力的不平衡分配，从而激发对政策形成过程的批判性评估，因此将有助于我们对权力、法律和国家的理解。

PI and Co-PI: Kitty Calavita and Michael CampbellTitle: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Explaining Changes in Incarceration in California and Texas0752153Project AbstractThis research will explain how and why California and Texas implemented policies that dramatically increased their use of incarceration in the late twentieth century. County-level crime, demographic, socio-economic and electoral data will be used to examine changes in voting patterns and support for particular prison policies in both states. The bulk of the research will be conducted in Sacramento, California, and Austin, Texas, where the state archives contain extensive documentation of the various institutional and political developments that led to prison expansion. The project will focus on changes in two variables that could potentially help explain incarceration policy developments: the growing political influence of individuals and organizations associated with the criminal justice system itself, and changes in the nature of the voting electorate. The results should provide a clearer understanding of the relationship between crime rates, changing voting patterns, social and economic change, and evolving prison policies. It will highlight the theoretical relevance of criminal justice system players in shaping crime control policies, and will unpack the often oversimplified notion of public opinion and its role in policy change. At a broad level of potential impact, the project aims to stimulate a critical assessment of the policy formation process by highlighting the uneven distribution of power and influence as it relates to the use of prisons as a crime control strategy, and as such will contribute to our understanding of power, law, and the state.