Punishment and Social Structure Revisited: Unemployment and Imprisonment in the United States, 1948–1984

Abstract

Several recent empirical studies of imprisonment trends in the United States and Western Europe confirm Rusche and Kirchheimer's thesis that unemployment affects imprisonment directly with crime held constant. This empirical confirmation, however, remains suspect because these studies fail to address alternative explanations adequately. This article examines these alternatives more thoroughly and considers a limitation on the scope of the thesis. In particular, because the thesis concerns competitive labor markets of industrial capitalism, we reason that unemployment plays less of a role in the dynamics of imprisonment where the labor market is less freely competitive. The analysis of post‐World War II trends reveals robust results for the Rusche‐Kirchheimer thesis and limited empirical support for differences in labor markets.

Partisan Politics, Electoral Competition and Imprisonment: An Analysis of States Over Time*

“…Box and Hale, 1985;Greenberg and West, 2001;Inverarity and McCarthy, 1988). However, as we noted earlier, research on this issue has been mixed (Chiricos and Delone, 1992).…”

“…8 In addition, because it is well known that prisons tend to operate near or above capacity (Harrison and Beck, 2003, Table 8), we take into account the "back door" of the imprisonment system by including in our models the percentage of prisoners released (cf. Berk, et al 1983;Inverarity and McCarthy, 1988;Inverarity and Grattet, 1989).…”

“…Carroll and Doubet, 1983;Galster and Scaturo, 1985;Michalowski and Pearson, 1990) or national-level time-series analyses (e.g. Inverarity and Grattet, 1989;Inverarity and McCarthy, 1988;Jankovic, 1977). Both have their limitations, given the tremendous variation in penal severity across states and over time (see Chiricos and Delone, 1992).…”

Castigo y Economía Política

“…Esto no es para sugerir que el tradicional análisis político-económico, con su enfoque reduccionista en las relaciones entre desempleo y encarcelamiento (Jankovic, 1977;Greenberg, 1980;Wallace, 1980;Galster y Scaturo, 1985;Inverarity y McCarthy, 1988), ha sido apto para elaborar una crítica estructural convincente del castigo contemporáneo; tampoco para argumentar que el énfasis exclusivo en el castigo como instrumento de control de clase podría proveer de una explicación exhaustiva de las políticas penales en las sociedades contemporáneas. De hecho, desde la perspectiva que definiría como una economía política "post-reduccionista" del castigo, el desafío es concebir una crítica no ortodoxa de las estrategias penales, que sea capaz de superar la falsa alternativa entre la "estructura" y la "cultura", y teniendo en cuenta al mismo tiempo importantes inquietudes teóricas planteadas por otras corrientes críticas al interior del campo del castigo y la sociedad.…”

Economic conditions and punishment in Postbellum Georgia

“…Their measures of punishment are diverse and include the rate at which offenders are admitted (e.g., Brenner, 1976;Jankovic, 1977;Melossi, 1985;Inverarity and Grattet, 1989), incarcerated (Yeager, 1979;Wallace, 1981), or released (e.g., Galster and Scaturo, 1985;Inverarity and McCarthy, 1988). Similarly diverse locations have been examined.…”