Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Politics of Prison Growth: From Chain Gangs to Work Release Centers and Supemax Prisons, Florida, 1955 - 2005

职务名称：博士论文研究：监狱的发展：从连锁帮派到工作释放中心和超级监狱，佛罗里达，1955年至2005年主要调查员：约翰·哈根;合作调查员：石楠·舍恩菲尔德摘要在过去的三十年里，美国经历了前所未有的监禁上升;大约220万人现在居住在美国的监狱和监狱。佛罗里达监禁人数的增长就是这一趋势的典型代表：自1974年以来，佛罗里达的州立法者拨款建造了55个主要的惩教机构和另外56个工作营地和工作释放中心，以容纳平均每年增长20%的囚犯人口。佛罗里达现在关押着大约85，000人，监狱人口仅超过德克萨斯州，加州和联邦监狱系统。本研究以佛罗里达州为例，比较了监狱系统立法决定的三个时期：监狱繁荣前（1955-1972年）、监狱繁荣初期（1973-1987年）和监狱繁荣后期（1988-2005年）。 该项目结合档案研究，访谈和二手数据，以回答州立法者如何对犯罪控制做出选择;他们在做出可能扩大监狱系统的决定时考虑了哪些因素;什么样的社会，政治和经济条件支持他们的决定;最后，如果以及如何这些因素和条件在过去的五十年中发生了变化。这一独特的州一级研究设计有望产生挑战和发展美国政治与惩罚之间关系的现行理论的发现。在这样做的过程中，调查结果将描绘一个更全面和复杂的国家政策制定者在监狱增长中的作用，因为他们既不是饥饿的公众的受害者，也不是新的刑罚国家的自私建筑师。这项研究还有望产生更广泛的实际影响，因为它是在一个关键时刻，当监狱资源与其他支出优先事项，包括国内安全的资源竞争。 立法者如何决定资助什么对公民和社区非常重要，特别是对那些受到监禁增加不利影响最严重的非洲裔美国人社区。因此，研究结果将传播给学术界、决策者和社区团体，他们可以利用这些知识帮助立法者创造更有效、危害较小的预防和控制犯罪手段。

Title: Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Politics of Prison Growth: From Chain Gangs to Work Release Centers and Supermax Prisons, Florida, 1955 to 2005Principle Investigator: John Hagan; Co-investigator: Heather SchoenfeldAbstractThe United States experienced an unprecedented rise in imprisonment over the last thirty years; approximately 2.2 million people now reside in U.S. prisons and jails. The growth of imprisonment in Florida typifies this trend: since 1974, Florida's state legislators have appropriated money to build over 55 major correctional institutions and an additional 56 work camps and work release centers in order to accommodate an inmate population that grew an average of 20% per year. Florida now imprisons approximately 85,000 people, a prison population exceeded by only Texas, California, and the federal prison system. Using Florida as a case study, this research project compares three periods of legislative decisions around the prison system: the pre-prison boom (1955-1972), the initial prison boom (1973-1987), and the late prison boom (1988-2005). The project combines archival research, interviews and secondary data to answer how state legislators made choices about crime control; what factors they considered when making decisions that could expand the prison system; what social, political and economic conditions underpinned their decisions; and finally, if and how these factors and conditions changed over the course of the last fifty years. This unique state-level research design promises to generate findings that challenge and develop current theories on the relationship between politics and punishment in the United States. In doing so, the findings will paint a more comprehensive and complex picture of state policymakers' role in prison growth as they are neither solely victims of a vengeance-hungry public, nor self-serving architects of the new penal state. The research also promises to have a broader, practical impact, as it comes at a critical point in time when resources for prisons are competing with resources for other spending priorities, including domestic security. How legislators decide what to fund will be very important to citizens and communities, especially to those African-American communities most adversely impacted by the rise in imprisonment. Consequently, the research findings will be disseminated to academics, policymakers and community groups who can use the knowledge to help legislators create more effective, and less detrimental, means of crime prevention and control.