Collaborative Research: State Variation in Mass Incarceration Reforms

在美国监禁人数多年来不断增加之后，最近许多州都通过了旨在减少监狱人口的改革。然而，并不是所有的州都接受了对其监禁率和政策的改革。该项目将研究是什么导致一些州而不是其他州启动新的政策，可以降低监禁率。因此，本项目利用国家背景的转变和州一级改革的新变化来评估各州如何创建或阻碍其监禁政策的重大改革。该项目将研究2000年至2016年期间几个州的立法监禁改革努力。为此，该项目将使用配对案例研究比较设计。在不同地理区域的三组国家对将在理论上相关的变量与刑事政策和监禁率相匹配。匹配状态对设计允许改革程度的变化。该项目的数据将包括档案和立法文件、媒体内容和访谈。该项目的去识别数据将公开提供。通过这种方式，该项目将有助于确定为什么一些州实施了监禁改革，而另一些州却在这样做时受到阻碍。该项目还将帮助确定有效的战略，资源和流程，最有可能更好地了解不同州背景下不必要的监禁。

After years of increasing incarceration in the United States, recently many states have passed reforms aimed at reducing their prison populations. However, not all states have embraced reform of their incarceration rates and policies. This project will examine what has led some states but not others to initiate new policies that could reduce rates of imprisonment. Consequently, this project takes advantage of the shift in national context and the new variation in state level reforms to assess how states create or impede significant reforms of their incarceration policies.The project will examine legislative incarceration reform efforts in several states between 2000 and 2016. To do so, the project will use a paired case study comparison design. Three sets of state-pairs in different geographical regions will be matched on theoretically relevant variables known to correlate with penal policy and incarceration rates. The matched state-pairs design allows for variation in extent of reform. Data for the project will include archival and legislative documents, media content, and interviews. De-identified data from the project will be made publicly available. In this way, the project will help determine why some states have enacted incarceration reform, while others have been impeded in doing so. The project also will help identify effective strategies, resources, and processes with the most potential to better understand unnecessary incarceration within different state contexts.