Punishment Policy Research Articles

Reclaiming the Power to Punish: Legislating and Administrating the California Supermax, 1982–1989

This article examines how increasingly punitive prison conditions, epitomized by the birth and spread of the supermax prison, developed in the United States. This analysis builds on a growing literature about the “new punitiveness” of U.S. punishment policy and its global proliferation. This article shifts the focus away from the policies that have led to increasing rates of incarceration, however, and toward the policies that have shaped the conditions of incarceration. Drawing on archival research and more than 30 oral history interviews with key informants, I examine the administrative and legislative processes that underwrote the supermax innovation in California in the 1980s. During California's late twentieth-century prison-building spree, prison administrators deployed multiple rhetorics of risk to extend their control over conditions of confinement in state prisons. As the state invested billions of dollars in prison building initiatives, legislators, who were focused primarily on building prisons faster, ceded authority over prison design and conditions to prison administrators. In the end, rather than implementing legislative policy, prison administrators initiated their own policies, institutionalizing a new form of “supermax” confinement, pushing at the limits of constitutionally acceptable practices.

The Orientation of Punishment Policy foundin ShangShu and its Practical Application

The Orientation of Punishment Policy foundin ShangShu and its Practical Application

Public Participation in South Africa’s Policy Decision-Making Process: The Mass and the Elite Choices

Public participation in policy-making dominates most Development, Political Science and Public Administration academic discourses. The issue of concern is the extent to which governments are able to create structures that allow for public participation of citizens in matters affecting their political and developmental concerns. The success of any government administration is, therefore, measured on the basis of how the citizens participate and contribute to the process of deciding their own political and developmental direction. It is argued that the public participation approach that considers the interests, contributions and needs of citizens in policy decision-making processes is difficult in practice. This article investigates the processes of public participation in public policy-making in South Africa with respect to the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act 92 of 1996, the Abolition of Capital Punishment policy and the Civil Union Act 17 of 2006. This is done with a view to determine if public participation in policy decision-making is a reflection of the choices of the elite or the masses.

CRIME DOES NOT CAUSE PUNISHMENT: The impact of sentencing policy on levels of crime

If countries can learn from one another, South Africa can learn from the experiences of other countries that have re-organised their sentencing systems in recent decades. South Africa’s correctional system has many similarities to America’s – seriously overcrowded prisons, sentences that are too long, stark disparities, and therefore injustices, in sentences received for comparable crimes. American solutions – mandatory minimums, prison terms measured in decades not years – have neither reduced crime rates nor made streets safer. Nor will they in South Africa. Comparisons of countries with very different sentencing policies and punishment practices – Canada versus the United States, Finland versus the rest of Scandinavia, England versus Scotland – show that sentencing and punishment have little discernible effect on crime trends and patterns. Crime trends and patterns in most developed countries move in broad parallel, irrespective of national punishment policies.

Regulating food risk management—a government–manufacturer game facing endogenous consumer demand

AbstractIn the food industry, manufacturers may add some chemical additives to augment the appearance or taste of food. This may increase the food demand and sales profits, but may also cause health problems to consumers. The government could use a punishment policy to regulate and deter such risky behavior but could also benefit from economic prosperity and tax income based on their revenues. This generates a tradeoff for the government to balance tax income, punishment income, and health risks. Adapting to government regulations, the manufacturers choose the level of chemical additives, which impacts the consumer demand. To our knowledge, no prior work has studied the strategic interactions of regulating the government and the manufacturers, faced with strategic customers. This paper fills this gap by (a) building a government‐manufacturer model and comparing the corresponding decentralized and centralized models; and (b) applying the 2008 Sanlu food contamination data to validate and illustrate the models.

THE LOGIC OF HOLY QURAN PENOLOGY

Ethically, penalty is bad evil and abominable without a strong theoretical and practical justification, wisdom and religion will not confirm it. On the other hand, establishment and execution of penalty is in contrary to principle and it can have deep and paramount political, social, human, legal and religious reflections especially in an Islamic community. penal policy governing Islamic judicial system should be based on Islamic criminal teachings. As the most important source, Islam play the main role. In Quran, in addition to respecting human relations with each other, the relationship between human and Allah is also considered. It is a point ignored by most western philosophers and they have considered the purpose of punishment irrespective of this point that it has caused that several opinions are expressed on punishment execution. In Holy Quran attitude, the policy and aim of punishment is clear. In Holy Quran, in addition to justice, the benefit of punishment is also considered. Therefore, one can say that school of Holy Quran is a combined school concerning punishments. The goals of punishment and principles dominating punishments are justified in this regard.

Market Power in Double Price Cap electricity Market

In this paper, we examine double price cap electricity market from the viewpoint of non-pivotal firms. Collusive scarcity is developed by abolishing the widespread assumption that non-pivotal firms have not enjoyed a strategic behaviour of capacity withholding. In the context of the infinitely repeated game paradigm, the firms are presented with reinforcement learning and punishment policy framework, in that they attempt to learn how to tune the slope of bidding decisions and when to declare a collusive fictitious binding capacity constraint. The resulting bidding decisions explain the rationale of collusion behind capacity withholding and show to what extent non-pivotal firms can maintain stable collusive outcomes with punishment policy framework. A simulation using the generation portfolio of the Iranian electricity industry sheds light on why non-pivotal firms are capable of capacity withholding and how they maintain their collusive behaviour by exerting punishment policy.

Patient Safety Reporting: Lessons From the Blind Men and the Elephant

Keywords: editorial / personal viewpoint; organ procurement and allocation; organ transplantation in general; business / management; United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS); quality of care / care delivery; patient safety

Young Adult Outcomes and the Life-Course Penalties of Parental Incarceration

Objectives: The transition to adulthood can be challenging, especially for children of incarcerated parents. Drawing on reentry and life-course scholarship, we argue that parental incarceration may adversely affect multiple life outcomes for children as they progress from adolescence into adulthood and that such effects may persist from early young adulthood into late young adulthood. Methods: The study uses propensity score matching analyses of National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data ( N = 12,844). Results: Analyses identified harmful effects of parental incarceration on many life domains, including criminal behavior, mental health, illegal drug use, education, earnings, and intimate relationships. These effects typically surfaced by early young adulthood and continued into late young adulthood. Conclusions: The results suggest that parental incarceration constitutes a significant turning point in the lives of young people and underscore the importance of life-course perspectives for understanding incarceration effects. They also illustrate that formal punishment policies may create harms that potentially offset intended benefits.

US punitiveness ‘Canadian style’? Cultural values and Canadian punishment policy

From the mid-19th century until 2006, Canadian official policy statements (from both Liberal and Conservative governments) made it clear that offending was seen as largely socially determined and that it was the state’s responsibility to try to reintegrate those who offend back into mainstream society. In this context, imprisonment was seen as a necessary evil, to be avoided wherever possible. The era since 2006 looks considerably more American than Canadian. The policy elite in Canada has taken the position that those who commit offences are inherently ‘bad’ people and qualitatively different from ‘ordinary law abiding’ Canadians. Exclusionary responses are privileged as those who commit offences are seen as having chosen to forfeit their rights of full citizenship. Several broader (cultural and political) ramifications of this punitive shift in the normative orientation expressed by policy-makers in Canada are discussed.

The Growth in the Elderly Inmate Prison Population

State and federal prison systems have experienced an unprecedented and accelerating growth in their elderly inmate populations over the past three decades. While aging inmates have significant operational and cost implications for correctional systems, a clear understanding of the nature and mechanisms behind the growth in this special population does not exist. This article examines the trends in the older inmate population in Florida from 1980 to 2010 to assess whether significant changes in the punishment policies in the state over this period have contributed to this population’s growth and to better understand the composition of this special inmate group. We present annual data over a 31-year period to describe the trends in prison admissions, releases, stock populations, and the average length of stay for the age-groups of 49 or younger versus 50 and older. This trend analysis against a backdrop of changes in punishment structure over time will inform policy makers about how trends in demographic populations like the elderly inmate population in Florida have coincided with shifts in sentencing practices.

Stackelberg Game on Space and Frequency Heterogeneity Analysis in an OFDMA-Based Cognitive Spectrum Leasing

With the development of cognitive radio technologies, dynamic spectrum access (DSA) techniques are being regarded as a promising approach to increase the efficiency of spectrum utilization and to solve spectrum scarcity problem. This comes as a greater challenge in a cellular network where there are multiple primary users (PUs) who communicate with their access point while the other secondary users (SUs) want to use PU's spectrum. On the other hand, heterogeneity in terms of space and frequency can affect the primary users' decision to release their spectrum to the SUs. In this respect, the present paper is intended to address this issue and thus propose a solution with regard to the reward and punishment policy and equivalent revenue per unit transmission parameter. It has to be noted that both PUs and SUs aim to maximize their utilities in terms of their transmission rate and revenue/payment. Therefore, the proposed model is formulated as a Stackelberg Game, and a unique Nash Equilibrium Point is achieved by analytical procedure. Based on the analyses, the paper presents the conditions under which cooperation will enhance the performance of the whole system. Both analytical and numerical results reveal that the cooperative cognitive radio framework is a promising framework under which the utility of both the primary and secondary systems is maximized.

English

This study explores the major challenges that affect students’ enrollment and participation and the key measures schools take to mitigate the challenge and help students continue their education. The data were collected from 23 secondary school grade nine students in Amahara Regional State in Ethiopia using the structured questionnaires from students and teachers as well as by using semi-structured interview from school principals. The results suggest that the major challenges were family related ( opportunity cost of students, family issue such as parental conflict, taking care of family members) factors and associated with individual characteristics of students (disability, illness) are prominent ones. The study also made clear that though the effect size is very small, there is a statistically significant difference between urban and rural students in the reasons for their drop out from school. This study also highlights that schools do not facilitate conditions for poor children to be supported by NGOs or exempt them from school fees. They also do not provide food and health services for poor children. In addition, schools have no guidance and counseling or social worker who can support students when they face problems in schools. Moreover, though schools have no corporal punishment policies and procedures, schools implement other punishment techniques such as to miss class if they arrive late. Key words: Challenges, transition, intervention, primary school, secondary school.

Legal questions on financial market abuse

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to underline the impact that globalization of financial markets has on national punishment policies. The US financial crisis has strongly affected consumers’ lives, but the focus of this research is on the national provisions against the illegal and unfair behaviour of economic actors, with special regard to a phenomenon that took place abroad, but whose effects came to light in many different countries. Design/methodology/approach – Different methodological approaches, both deductive and inductive, are combined in the present paper, together with comparative and philosophical insights on national Court decisions and scholar writings. Findings – As European Union (EU) member States experts are discussing about a lex mercatoria for the financial markets to govern the EU integration process, this study highlights some questions concerning mainly three aspects: the level of censorship; forms and nature of responsibility; punitive models and their micro- and macro-economic effects. Originality/value – The study offers insights into the possible answers in terms of criminal and private law remedies to fight financial market abuse in a global dimension, through the use of general principles of contractual and tort law, which are common among EU member State, as culpa in eligendo, culpa in vigilando, duty of information, duty of care, ecc […] .

Human Rights Policy: The Cases of Capital Punishment in Kyrgyzstan and South Korea

There are significant variations with regard to the use of the death penalty. The paper attempts to identify both environmental and the state elite's interest explanations for the capital punishment policy development by examining two cases of capital punishment in Kyrgyzstan and South Korea. In Kyrgyzstan, geopolitical situation created through influence of the EU and power struggles after the collapse of the Soviet Union has affected the state elite's decision making of death penalty policy. Induced by a new geopolitical situation, Kyrgyzstan state leaders adopted the abolition of the death penalty to increase political and financial powers. In South Korea, separation with North Korea, and the Clinton administration's engagement policy toward North Korea in the early 1990s catalyzed President DJ Kim to meet the needs of radical groups in South Korea. The state elite's interest to maintain political power led to the adoption of death penalty moratorium. This comparative study shows that various geopolitical environments result in different capital punishment policy outcomes by influencing the state elite's interests.

The delayed emergence of penal modernism in Florida

Recently, punishment scholars have challenged the dominant historiography of a relatively uncontested period of penal modernism or penal welfarism across the USA between the Second World War and the 1960s. However, scholarship has not yet explained why penal modernism failed to take hold in particular regions and states. Using the social history of punishment in Florida, I argue that penal modernism failed to take hold in Florida for three reasons: the effect of political arrangements on the ability of political and bureaucratic actors to reform penal institutions; the timing of modern penal initiatives with the capacity of state bureaucracies; and the precedent that linked punishment policy and practices to cultural assumptions about ‘black labor’. The findings suggest that punishment scholars can draw on historical institutionalist scholarship in order to understand continuity and change in penality.

Cost minimizing sequential punishment policies for repeat offenders

This article discusses optimal sanctions for repeat offenders. We analysed a multi-period decision problem, where the regulator’s main objectives are to block any violations of law and to minimize the costs of crime control. We conclude that, when offenders are identical and wealth constrained, the government is resource constrained, can perfectly observe illicit gains and commits to a certain policy throughout the whole planning horizon, forward-looking solution implies that cost minimizing deterrence is decreasing in the number of offenses. This analysis is relevant in case when imprisonment is not commonly used, only monetary sanctions are allowed and limited liability of offenders plays an important role. The examples are tax evasion, violations of environmental regulations and violations of competition law.

Reassessing the Purpose of Punishment: The Roles of Mercy and Victim-involvement in Criminal Proceedings

While many possible goals could be achieved by punishing offenders, the reality of punishment in today's criminal justice system is that lawmakers have created the illusion of purpose in punishment when in fact the expectations are unrealistic and the options for punishment too few to expect the simultaneous accomplishment of all possible desirable goals. This lack of clear purpose has led to a punishment policy shaped largely by what some scholars refer to as “paranoid politicians,” who have used public fear of crime as a fulcrum to launch “tough on crime” policies. Over a long period of time, this process has created a punishment system that many scholars argue has become too harsh and exceeds what a system of just deserts would allow for. This outcome has led some to propose that systematic mercy be implemented where appropriate, in order to offset the perceived harshness of the criminal justice system. While such a proposal is problematic, a re-evaluation of punishment policy seems appropriate. This paper suggests that any re-evaluation of punishment policy should include provisions for a broader consideration of victims' issues in sentencing as an integral part of the implementation of punishment in a truly just system.

Thinking about Punishment across Space and Time

This short essay shows why the customary two-categories of punishment theories (retributive theories and consequentialist theories) should be increased to three to include a-normative theory and how that would aid understanding of differences in punishment thinking and policy over time and across space. Section I lays out conventional typologies of punishment theories and explains why a-normative theory should be added. Section II introduces the general literature on determinants of punishment policies and practices. Section III briefly discusses Eastern and Central Europe. Section IV illustrates how the normative and explanatory theories when combined enrich explanations and improve understanding.Keywords: punishment theories; punishment policies and practices; history of punishment institutions and practices; comparative analysis of punishment institutions and practices; Eastern and Central Europe

The need for specific penalties for hacking in criminal law.

In spite of the fact that hacking is a widely used term, it is still not legally established. Moreover, the definition of the concept of hacking has been deployed in a wide variety of ways in national literature. This ambiguity has led to various side effects. Recently in the United States, reforms collectively known as Aaron's Law were proposed as intended amendments to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Most experts expect that this change will put the brakes on the CFAA as a severe punishment policy, and result in a drop in controversial court decisions. In this study, we analyze the definitions and the penalties for hacking for each country and compare them with the national law and then make suggestions through more specific legislation. We expect it will reduce legal controversy and prevent excessive punishment.