Incarceration Nation
How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World

Incarceration Nation demonstrates that the US public played a critical role in the rise of mass incarceration in this country.

Peter K. Enns (Author)

9781316500613, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 March 2016

184 pages, 43 b/w illus. 14 tables
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.1 cm, 0.29 kg

'It is said every society gets the criminals it deserves, but we get the justice system that we want. In this highly impressive new book, Peter Enns demonstrates precisely this: the growth of the incarceration nation was no accident and we are all implicated. The good news is that public opinion is changing dramatically on this issue. Enns's important analysis gives me great hope that if we can build it, we can also knock it down.' Shadd Maruna, Dean, Rutgers School of Criminal Justice

The rise of mass incarceration in the United States is one of the most critical outcomes of the last half-century. Incarceration Nation offers the most compelling explanation of this outcome to date. This book combines in-depth analysis of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon's presidential campaigns with sixty years of data analysis. The result is a sophisticated and highly accessible picture of the rise of mass incarceration. In contrast to conventional wisdom, Peter K. Enns shows that during the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, politicians responded to an increasingly punitive public by pushing policy in a more punitive direction. The book also argues that media coverage of rising crime rates helped fuel the public's punitiveness. Equally as important, a decline in public punitiveness in recent years offers a critical window into understanding current bipartisan calls for criminal justice reform.

1. Introduction
2. A forgiving or a punitive public?
3. Who led whom?
4. Explaining the public's punitiveness
5. Democracy at work? Public opinion and mass incarceration
6. Punitive politics in the states
7. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Crime & criminology [JKV], Sociology [JHB]