Locked In? Conservative Reform and the Future of Mass Incarceration. Issue 1 (January 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dagan, David; Teles, Steven M.
• Editors: Wildeman, Christopher; Hacker, Jacob S.; Weaver, Vesla M.
• Is Part Of: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Volume 651:Issue 1(2014:Jan.)
• Page Start: 266
• Page End: 276
• Publication Date: 2014-01
• Subjects: prisons -- mass incarceration -- carceral state -- feedback; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- United States -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716213502935
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-7162

Abstract

The dominant implication of the carceral state literature is that path-breaking change is impossible through ordinary politics, reducing the options to either acquiescence or a level of mass mobilization not seen in decades. Over the last decade, however, activists have generated a surge of agitation for carceral reform, especially at the state level. In a twist the scholarly literature did not anticipate, much of that energy is coming from the Right. The theoretical flaw underlying the scholarly pessimism is a focus on the way policies entrench themselves through positive feedback, without commensurate attention to negative feedback. We argue the balance of feedback is shifting to the negative side in the case of mass incarceration. To seriously shrink the prison population, however, conservatives will have to accept the construction of alternative government structures; liberals will have to accept that these will remain more paternalistic than they might like.