Constructing the public will: How political actors in New York State construct, assess, and use public opinion in penal policy making

Abstract

Prior research has failed to attend adequately to the ways in which state-level political actors in the USA think about and relate to public opinion. While some research has considered how political actors, such as legislators and state agency staff members, assess public opinion on penal issues, that body of research has been limited both conceptually and methodologically. This article argues that an enterprise perspective on policy making combined with a constructionist perspective on public opinion have the potential to deepen our understanding of penal policy making. To that end, descriptive data from interviews with a wide range of political actors in New York State are considered for what they indicate about the dynamics of public opinion construction, assessment, and use among political actors engaged in penal policy making.