Understanding mass incarceration as a grand social experiment

Abstract

Prison populations in the United States have increased in every year since 1973 – during depressions and in times of economic growth, with rising and falling crime rates, and in times of war and peace. Accomplishing this historically unprecedented penal pattern has required a serious policy agenda that has remained focused on punishment as a goal for more than a generation. This paper seeks to understand that policy orientation from the framework of a social experiment. It explores the following questions: how does the penal experiment – which we have called the Punishment Imperative – compare to other “grand” social experiments? What were its assumptions? What forms did the experiment take? What lessons can be learned from it? What is the future of the grand social experiment in mass incarceration?

Citation

Frost, N.A. and Clear, T.R. (2009), "Understanding mass incarceration as a grand social experiment", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Special Issue New Perspectives on Crime and Criminal Justice (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 47), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 159-191. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2009)0000047008