Punitive attitudes across geographical areas: Exploring the rural/urban divide in Canada (original) (raw)
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Alberta Law Review
Judges, Crown prosecutors, defence counsel, probation officers, and police officials face increased media attention and political rhetoric in all areas of their work, notably in the field of sentencing. It is therefore necessary that we understand the concept of"penal populism," how it influences public opinion and, by parity ofreasoning, how it is influenced by public opinion. Thankfully, we can look to a single research tool to assist us in our efforts to understand the forces that shape (and distort) public opinion: Penal Populism and Public Opinion Lessons from Five Countries 1 provides an in-depth, comprehensive, and compelling examination of the interplay between politicians and voters as it influences the selection of a fit and proper sentence.
In the public discourse of Western democracies, 1 the axis of "urban" versus "rural" has reappeared. 2 Often discussed in the context of right-wing populism and its successes among rural voters, commentators have discussed the "Big Sort," 3 the contrast between "Anywheres" and "Somewheres," 4 and the lifeworlds of "hillbillies." 5 Scholars in the social sciences have attempted to understand what it feels like to live in rural places, using ethnographic methods, 6 or how to understand the resentment against urbanites expressed in farmers' protests. 7 In studies of electoral politics, the differences between urban and rural voting behavior have long been an issue. 8 One political scientist, Jonathan A. Rodden, claims, with regard to the US, that "The Democrats, quite simply, have evolved into a diverse collection of urban interest groups, and the Republicans into an assemblage of exurban and rural interests." 9 1 Similar dynamics may take place in other societies. My focus will be on Western societies for lack of knowledge about other countries, but some arguments may also apply elsewhere, mutatis mutandis. 2 E.g. Woods 2022, p. 27. 3
Penal populism as Subject of Social Science Research
2016
Such an insignifi cant theoretical basedespite an unquestionable popularity of the topic and its constant presence in the public discourse-is at least to some degree a refl ection of this phenomenon's complexity, which is quite diffi cult to capture. Th is characteristic, as a matter of fact, applies to the overall problem of populism. What makes matters even worse is a strong connection between penal populism and activities currently undertaken by political decision-makers. Th is situation forces law theoreticians to condemn diff erent aspects of the phenomenon, which-in turn-results in the pushing aside deeper theoretical analyses, not to mention time-consuming empirical research. In most academic publications, penal populism is associated with political opportunism in the area of (mainly) law-making or (more rarely) application of criminal law. According to J.V. Roberts, L.J. Stalans, D. Indermaur i M. Hough (2003: 5) this implies the introduction of specifi c criminal law policy institutions more for the purpose of garnering votes than lowering down crime statistics, while T. Daems (2007: 322) recognises it as a kind of anti-system discourse
Populism and Punitive Penal Policy
Criminal Justice Matters, 2002
There are two striking facts about crime and justice across the developed world over the last decade or so. Crime, with some exceptions, has been in decline; and punitive penal policies have been on the increase. The trend is particularly marked in the industrialized English-speaking world. In England and Wales crime has fallen significantly since the mid-1990s or by crime statistics.
Punitiveness and Political Culture
2012
This article draws on an emerging comparative literature indicating the significant effects that political systems can have on the deployment of penal power, and the ways they condition responses to crime and to criminal offenders. It explores two political-cultural mechanisms that help account for variations in levels of punitiveness between countries. These mechanisms – called here as the insulation and autonomy effect and the populism disincentive effect – are embedded in jurisdiction specific political cultures and the structures that sustain them.
Penal Populism: The End of Reason
Nova Criminis, 2017
Penal populism has become a much discussed characteristic of punishment in modern society. Most such commentaries, however, take the rather myopic view that this phenomenon represents some localized event within the social body, to be diagnosed, theorized and exorcized there. This article, however, argues that the emergence of penal populism is neither the endpoint of nor the limits to populism and its consequences in modern society. Rather, it marks only the beginnings of its more general resurgence in the early twenty first century. In these respects, penal populism should be understood as only a convenient incubating phase in which populist forces found vigour and strength before flowing much deeper into mainstream society from that gestation. If it might be thought that penal populism represents an attack on the long established link between reason and modern punishment, this has been only the prelude to the way in which a much more free flowing political populism now threatens to bring an end to Reason itself, the foundation stone of modernity. This shift from penal to political populism has been precipitated by two interconnected factors: the impact of the 2008 global fiscal crisis and the mass movement of peoples across the globe. The article concludes with a discussion of how political populism continues to transform punishment in modern society, as well as the broader social consequences and implications of its emergence.
Penal Populism and the Public Thermostat: Crime, Public Punitiveness, and Public Policy
Governance, 2016
This paper makes the case that feedback processes in democratic politics-between crime rates, public opinion and public policy-can account for the growth of penal populism in Britain. It argues that the public recognise and respond to rising (and falling) levels of crime, and that in turn public support for being tough on crime is translated into patterns of imprisonment. This contributes to debates over the crime-opinion-policy connection, unpacking the dynamic processes by which these relationships unfold at the aggregate-level. This uses the most extensive dataset ever assembled on aggregate opinion on crime in Britain to construct a new overtime measure of punitive attitudes. The analysis first tests the thermostatic responsiveness of punitive attitudes to changes in recorded crime rates as well as self-reported victimisation, and then examines the degree to which changes in mass opinion impact on criminal justice policy.