American Exceptionalism in Parole Release and Supervision

Smit, Dirk van Zyl; Corda, Alessandro

doi:10.1093/oso/9780190203542.003.0011

Cited by 14 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…America’s per capita rate of correctional supervision is five times greater than the European average (Corda, 2016). It is also more control-oriented with multiple restrictions placed on the supervisee’s behavior and routine re-incarceration following license violations (Rhine and Taxman, 2018; Van Zyl Smit and Corda, 2018). Probation and parole officers in the US are routinely armed and, unlike their European counterparts, bear little resemblance to social workers.…”

Section: The Distinctiveness Of American Penalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Penal controls and social controls: Toward a theory of American penal exceptionalism

Garland

2019

Punishment & Society

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This article argues that to explain American penal exceptionalism, we have to consider America’s exceptional levels of punishment together with America’s exceptional levels of violence and disorder, while understanding both of these as outcomes of America’s distinctive political economy. After specifying the multiple respects in which American penality is a comparative outlier, the article develops a new theorization of modes of penal action that reveals the extent to which the US has come to rely on penal controls rather than other kinds of punishment. This over-reliance on penal controls is viewed as an adaptation to the weakness of non-penal social controls in American communities. These social control deficits are, in turn, attributed to America’s ultra-liberal political economy, which is seen as having detrimental effects for the functioning of families and communities, tending to reduce the effectiveness of informal social controls and to generate high levels of neighborhood disorganization and violence. The same political economy limits the capacity of government to respond to these structurally generated problems using the social policy interventions characteristic of more fully developed welfare states. The result is a marked bias toward the use of penal controls.

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Section: The Distinctiveness Of American Penalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Penal controls and social controls: Toward a theory of American penal exceptionalism

Garland

2019

Punishment & Society

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“…It is also much more conditional and control-oriented. Probation and parole in the US today are not primarily forms of social assistance or social work: they are modes of constraint and control (Simon 19993;Rhine & Taxman 2017;Van Zyl Smit & Corda 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

Penal power in America: Forms, functions and foundations

Garland¹

2017

JBA

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Abstract:In this article I discuss the exercise of penal power in contemporary America with a view to explaining its historical causes, its contemporary forms and functions, and its social foundations. I argue that the leading characteristic of American penality today is not degradation, retribution, racial caste-making, or neoliberal discipline but instead the imposition of penal controls. The remainder of the article develops some hypotheses about the social and political roots of that distinctive form of punishment. Re-connecting penal controls with patterns of crime and violence, I highlight the deficits of social control and social capital that set America off from comparable nations and I trace the sources of these deficits to the structure and operation of certain American institutions as well as the limited capacities and patterned dispositions of the American state.

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“…Within this context, the organizational culture in agencies across the country shifted toward a risk-management narrative, viewing parole officers as primarily responsible for detecting and catching violators; a view embraced by many of the officers themselves (American Bar Association, 2007; Petersilia, 2003, 2008;van Zyl Smit & Corda, 2018). In these jurisdictions, the focus of postrelease supervision came to be and remains largely preoccupied with recidivism reduction and public safety through more contacts, enhanced surveillance (especially for those individuals deemed higher risk), more aggressive enforcement of conditions, and the immediate sanctioning of noncompliance.…”

Section: Parole In the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parole Rules in the United States: Conditions of Parole in Historical Perspective, 1956–2020

Wiggins

Rhine

Crye

et al. 2021

Criminal Justice Review

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This article reports the results of our census of standard conditions of parole throughout the United States in 2020. Using in vivo qualitative content analysis, we coded standard conditions of parole for each of the United States’ 52 jurisdictions into categories that follow the model of the previous five censuses. Comparing our census with the previous five, we outlined the ways the standard conditions of parole have expanded significantly across the last 7 decades. Through this analysis, we identified four trends in the evolution of parole: the ever-expanding reach of technology in parole management, the increasing prevalence of fees and restitution imposed upon people on parole, a dramatic rise in the overall number of standard conditions, and an emergence of conditions related to reentry and rehabilitation.

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American Exceptionalism in Parole Release and Supervision

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

Penal controls and social controls: Toward a theory of American penal exceptionalism

Penal controls and social controls: Toward a theory of American penal exceptionalism

Penal power in America: Forms, functions and foundations

Parole Rules in the United States: Conditions of Parole in Historical Perspective, 1956–2020

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