Beyond the austerity-driven hypothesis: Political economic theses on penality and the recent prison population decline
| Author | José A. Brandariz |
| DOI | 10.1177/14773708211000640 |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue: Penal changes, crises, and the political economy of punishment |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14773708211000640
European Journal of Criminology
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/14773708211000640
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Beyond the austerity-driven
hypothesis: Political economic
theses on penality and the
recent prison population
decline
José A. Brandariz
University of A Coruna, Spain
Abstract
In what might be called the ‘austerity-driven hypothesis’, a consistent strand of literature has
sought to explain the prison downsizing witnessed in many jurisdictions of the global north over
the past decade by referring to the financial crisis of the late 2000s to early 2010s and its effects
in terms of public spending cuts. Since this economic phase is essentially over, whereas the
(moderate) decarceration turn is still ongoing, there are good reasons to challenge this hypothesis.
This article delves into the non-economic forces that are fostering a prison population decline
that, 10 years on, is becoming the new ‘penal normal’. The article thereby aims to spark a dialogue
not only with the scholarship exploring the prison downsizing but also with certain theoretical
frameworks that have played a key role in examining the punitive turn era. Additionally, the
article contributes to the conversation on the need to reframe materialist readings on penality
in a ‘non-reductionist’ fashion. By revisiting heterodox theses and scrutinizing the impact of
recent penal changes on traditional materialist accounts, the article joins the collective endeavour
seeking to update political economic perspectives on punishment and the penal field.
Keywords
Austerity-driven hypothesis, financial crisis, political economy of punishment, prison population
decline
Introduction: The prison population decline
This article aims to explore the factors – both economic and non-economic – driving
a critical penal change, the decline in the prison population recently witnessed in a
wide number of countries in the global north. As will be elaborated later, this punitive
Corresponding author:
José A. Brandariz, Facultade de Dereito, University of A Coruna, Campus de Elviña, s/n, 15071, A Coruña,
Spain.
Email: jabrandariz@yahoo.de
1000640EUC0010.1177/14773708211000640European Journal of CriminologyBrandariz
research-article2021
Special Issue: Penal changes, crises, and the political economy of punishment
2022, Vol. 19(3) 349–367
shift is particularly relevant to reframing and updating political economic theses on
penality.
A consistent body of political economy of punishment literature has claimed that
economic crises trigger rises in state punitiveness (see Box, 1987; Chiricos and DeLone,
1992; Inverarity and McCarthy, 1988; see also Brandariz and González-Sánchez, 2018).
This conclusion is in line with Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer’s ([1939] 2003: 94,
108) analysis of the less eligibility rule (see also Bonnet, 2019) and has generally been
reached by confirming the correlation between unemployment rates and incarceration
rates (see, among many others, Box and Hale, 1985; Greenberg, 1977; Jankovic, 1977).
The financial crisis, which started in 2007–8 (Varoufakis, 2011) and was followed
from spring 2010 in the eurozone by the sovereign debt crisis (Lapavitsas et al., 2012),
was the main global economic event of the 2010s. In contrast to what had long been
predicted by the aforementioned classical theses, in many global north countries this
period of economic chaos was concomitant with a significant fall in prison populations.
Certainly, between 2008 and 2018 incarceration rates increased in a number of OECD
and G20 nations, such as Argentina (from 136 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants to 194 –
2017), Australia (from 129 to 173), Brazil (from 235 to 344), Indonesia (from 58 to 96)
and Portugal (from 102 to 131).1 In addition, the prison population rate skyrocketed in
Turkey over the same period (from 147 to 322). From a regional perspective, this upward
trend is particularly noteworthy in Central and South America. Argentina and Brazil
aside, incarceration rates significantly escalated between 2008 and 2018 in Colombia
(from 158 to 235 – 2017), Panama (from 291 to 396), Honduras (from 143 to 216), Costa
Rica (from 184 to 287 – 2017), Peru (from 152 to 284) and El Salvador (from 323 to
617). In addition, these rates more than doubled in Bolivia (from 76 to 160), Paraguay
(from 96 to 210), Venezuela (from 87 to 194), Guatemala (from 58 to 141) and Ecuador
(from 83 to 219), and more than tripled in Nicaragua (from 105 to 323) over the same
time span (see Iturralde, 2019; Sozzo, 2017, 2018a).
However, incarceration rates significantly dwindled between 2008 and 2018 in other
OECD nations such as Chile (from 320 to 2458; see Wilenmann, 2020), Israel (from 312
to 231), Japan (from 60 to 40) and Mexico (from 198 to 156). In continental terms, this
prison decline has had a particular impact in Europe. As far as EU countries are con-
cerned, incarceration rates fell by more than 15 percent between 2008 and 2019 in
Bulgaria (from 132 to 107), Croatia (from 110 to 79), Cyprus (from 107 to 82), Estonia
(from 273 to 181), Finland (from 67 to 50), Germany (from 91 to 77), Latvia (from 299
to 183), Luxembourg (from 139 to 108), the Netherlands (from 72 to 56; see Boone et al.,
2020), Romania (from 132 to 107), Spain (from 157 to 126; see Brandariz, 2017) and
Sweden (from 75 to 60) (see Aebi and Tiago, 2018, 2020; Brandariz et al., 2017; Karstedt,
2013).
As can be seen, this prison drop has affected all European regions. However, it has
been particularly salient in East European jurisdictions, and more particularly in the for-
mer Soviet bloc (Dünkel, 2017; Slade, 2017). Between 2008 and 2018, in addition to
Estonia and Latvia, Belarus (from 459 to 344), Georgia (from 450 to 239), Kazakhstan
(from 304 to 201 – 2017), Russia (from 617 to 386) and Ukraine (from 316 to 128 –
2017) also experienced remarkable drops in their incarceration rates.
350 European Journal of Criminology 19(3)
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