Penal populism is
populism
Populism is a essentially contested concept, contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the "common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently a ...
related to
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
. It tends to manifest in the run up to elections when political parties put forward hard-line policies which they believe the public wants, rather than evidence-based policies based on their effectiveness at dealing with crime and associated social problems. Penal populism can be media driven political process whereby politicians compete with each other to impose tougher prison sentences on offenders based on a perception that crime is out of control.
Origins
The phrase was coined in 1993 by
Anthony Bottoms, when he labeled it one of the four main influences on contemporary criminal justice. It is a process that ignores or minimizes the views of criminologists, justice professionals and penal experts, claiming instead to represent the views of “the people” about the need for tougher punishment for criminal offending.
It has been theorized that the rise of penal populism has brought an increase in the repressiveness of various nation's criminal laws, including that of the United Kingdom, Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and the United States during the
War on Drugs. The resurgence of penal populism in the early 21st-century lead to streams of populism flowing deeper from penal fields into mainstream society. This shift from penal to political populism was precipitated by two interconnected factors: the impact of the
Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009. and the mass movement of peoples across the globe.
Scholars argue that the concept of penal populism may imply an implicit form of ''penal elitism'', that is, the "belief that penal policymaking should not be subjected to public debate and that matters pertaining to crime control and punishment should be left to experts or specialists."
[{{Cite journal , last=Shammas , first=Victor L. , date=2020-12-01 , title=Penal Elitism: Anatomy of a Professorial Ideology , url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-019-09463-7 , journal=Critical Criminology , language=en , volume=28 , issue=4 , pages=759–774 , doi=10.1007/s10612-019-09463-7 , issn=1572-9877, hdl=10852/74761 , hdl-access=free ]
See also
*
Carceral feminism
Carceral feminism is a critical term for types of feminism that advocate for enhancing and increasing prison sentences that deal with feminist and gender issues. The term criticises the belief that harsher and longer prison sentences will help w ...
*
Crime statistics
Crime statistics refer to systematic, quantitative results about crime, as opposed to crime news or anecdotes. Notably, crime statistics can be the result of two rather different processes:
* scientific research, such as criminological studies, vi ...
*
Dark figure of crime
First coined by Belgian sociologist and criminologist Adolphe Quetelet in the 19th century, the dark figure of crime, hidden figure of crime, or latent criminality is the amount of unreported, undetected, or undiscovered crime, and is a central ...
*
Law and order (politics)
In modern politics, "law and order" is an ideological approach focusing on harsher enforcement and penalties as ways to reduce crime. Penalties for perpetrators of disorder may include longer terms of imprisonment, mandatory sentencing, three ...
*
Under-reporting
Under-reporting usually refers to some issue, incident, statistic, etc., that individuals, responsible agencies, or news media have not reported, or have reported as less than the actual level or amount. Under-reporting of crimes, for example, make ...
References
Populism
Criminology
Penology
Law enforcement controversies