From Mass Imprisonment to Abolition (USP): Unterschied zwischen den Versionen

*[http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/14 Surveying the last 200 years of the history of the prison, one might well ask why the constant failure of the prison to live up to its claims has had no impact on its continuing longevity.] The history of the prison emerges as a succession of phases of over-exaggerated optimism in the power of the prison to change human behaviour, swiftly followed by failure in the realm of reality. One explanation for the survival of the prison might be that it has been successfully presented as the embodiment of a variety of contradictory justifications for punishment: it can been seen as incapacitating, retributive and as educative; either as harshpunishment or as benevolent reform, whichever suits the public mood best.  - No research has been able to demonstrate a positive link between a higher rate of imprisonment and a reduction of the crime rate. In fact, as Norval Morris points, "the less effective the prisons are in reducing crime, the higher the demand for more imprisonment" (p. 257). The view persists that increased severity of punishment will lead to less crime. In this context, the prison has also become a weapon in politics. As Morris observes, being "tough on crime" today is a precondition for election to public office, and imprisonment remains the preferred way of demonstrating this resolve in the never ending but constantly proclaimed "war on crime". As long as this naive belief in the powers of the prison is not put into perspective by its history of failed promises, the rallying cry of politicians in Britain and the US will continue to be "prison works" - irrespective of which party they belong to.