Social disruption, state priorities, and minority threat
| Author | Rick Ruddell |
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1462474505048131 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Social disruption, stat e
priorities, and minority
threat
A cross-national study of imprisonment
RICK RUDDELL
California State University, Chico, USA
Abstract
Understanding the use of punishment becomes increasingly important as imprison-
ment rates in many nations have fluctuated irrespective of crime rates. Controlling for
violent crime, inequality, modernization, and economic stress, this research examined
three diverse hypotheses about the sources of imprisonment in a sample of 100 nations.
Consistent with expectations, nations that retained use of the death penalty had a
greater use of imprisonment. More surprising was the finding of a clear and consistent
relationship between imprisonment and countries with common law legal systems, as
well as newly independent nation-states. Finally, this study reveals a significant –
although inconsistent – association between population heterogeneity and imprison-
ment. While punishment research has often focused upon the relationships between
economic variables and imprisonment, these findings suggest that theories of formal
social control will remain incomplete until the roles of political, cultural, and struc-
tural conditions are fully understood.
Key Wor ds
comparative criminal justice •cross-national imprisonment •imprisonment •
punishment
Comparative research generally finds that developed and developing nations have
similar rates of crime (Mayhew and White, 1997; Kangaspunta, Joutsen and Ollus,
1998; Barclay, Tavares and Siddique, 2001). There is, however, a substantial variation
in the manner that nations react to behaviors societies label as crime (Christie, 1993;
Newman, 1999). Cross-national responses to crime range from community-based
restorative justice practices to capital punishment, and these interventions are functions
of historical, political, geographic, economic, and cultural variables unique to many
7
PUNISHMENT
& SOCIETY
Copyright © SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
1462-4745; Vol 7(1): 7–28
DOI: 10.1177/1462474505048131
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nations (Reichel, 2002). Moreover, there is persuasive scholarly argument that articu-
lates how penal trends are a consequence of international treaties, the diffusion of infor-
mation and expertise, and the receptiveness of the public and policy-makers to different
ideas about punishment (Sparks, 2003: 25–6). It is therefore likely that these extra-legal
factors also contribute to the wide variation in the cross-national use of imprisonment
(see Walmsley, 2003).
It has long been argued that punishment serves purposes beyond crime control
(Durkheim, 1900/1983; Garland, 1990). Throughout the twentieth century, punish-
ment scholars argued that dominant groups within market economies used penal sanc-
tions when the interests of these elites were threatened – typically when living standards
decreased, or unemployment increased (Rusche, 1933/1978; Rusche and Kirchheimer,
1939/1968). Empirical tests of these propositions have usually focused upon the
changes or variation in the use of punishment within a single industrialized nation (Box
and Hale, 1982; Carroll and Doubet, 1983; Laffargue and Godefroy, 1989; Taggart and
Winn, 1993; Beckett and Western, 2001; Greenberg and West, 2001). Despite nearly
three decades of empirical scrutiny that has attempted to link punishment to economic
factors such as unemployment, inflation, or inequality, however, the predicted connec-
tions tend to be ambiguous – at least in recent studies (Jacobs and Kleban, 2003;
Ruddell, 2004; Sutton, 2004).
The inconsistent ability of economic factors to explain variation in the use of
imprisonment has resulted in scholars advocating for studies of formal social control
that also include social, political, and cultural factors (Taggart and Winn, 1993; Jacobs
and Helms, 1996, 1999; Caplow and Simon, 1999). As Garland (1990) observed,
punishment is a complex social phenomenon that is responsive to many stakeholders,
and is unlikely to be explained by a single variable. Consistent with this proposition,
recent national-level studies have found positive relationships between the size of
minority populations and the use of punishment (Beckett and Western, 2001; Green-
berg and West, 2001; Jacobs and Carmichael, 2001). Moreover, a number of scholars
have identified the relationships between political conditions and imprisonment
(Taggart and Winn, 1993; Jacobs and Helms, 1996, 1999; South and Weiss, 1998;
Sparks, 2003). It is possible that these underlying sources of high imprisonment prac-
tices may be more evident when viewed from a higher level of abstraction. Garland
(2001) observed that:
structural patterns . . . simply do not become visible in localized case studies focused upon a
single policy area or particular institution. Only by observing the field as a whole can we hope
to discover the strategies, rationalities, and cultures that give the field its distinctive structure
and organization. (p. viii)
Given the potential advantages of comparative empirical work, it may be fruitful to
extend the study of punishment beyond the borders of a single nation, or small samples
of first-world nations. There is a growing body of comparative research that has
increased our understanding of both crime (Messner and Rosenfeld, 1997; LaFree and
Drass, 2002; Pratt and Godsey, 2002) and criminal justice processes (Maguire, Howard
and Newman, 1998; Neapolitan, 2001; Sutton, 2004). As well as a useful strategy in
identifying structural patterns, cross-national comparisons may also provide a fresh
perspective on theoretical problems (Wiatr, 1971; Sztompka, 1990; Vagg, 1993; Evans,
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