The international diffusion of punitive penality: or, penal exceptionalism in the United States? Wacquant v Whitman
| Author | John Pratt |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865810393107 |
| Published date | 01 April 2011 |
| Date | 01 April 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Review Essays |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
44(1) 116–128
!The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865810393107
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Review Essay
The international diffusion of
punitive penality: or, penal
exceptionalism in the United
States? Wacquant v Whitman
John Pratt
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract
The United States has the biggest prison population the world has ever known. Why should
this be so and to what extent is this phenomenon of dramatically rising prison numbers now
being replicated around the rest of modern society? Wacquant’s Punishing the Poor claims that
the rise of neo-liberal polity since the 1970s has not only been the cause of these develop-
ments in the United States but at the same time is responsible for an international diffusion of
punitive penality. This essay disputes this claim by reference to Whitman’s Harsh Justice.
Long-term and deeply ingrained cultures, allied to the structural weakness of the US central
state authority since its declaration of independence from Britain in 1776, have been the
cause of the recent growth of imprisonment in that country and its differentiation from the
rest of Western penality. As such, we now find US exceptionalism in penal policy, rather than
any significant replication of this around the rest of Western society.
Keywords
imprisonment, neo-liberalism, US exceptionalism, Wacquant, Whitman
We know the numbers well enough: a rate of imprisonment at the stratospheric level of
760 per 100,000 of population and over two million people in prison. Then there are the
extraordinary new penal laws that emerged during the 1990s that dramatically increase
prison sentences, trample all over rights and conventions against double jeopardy and
disproportionate sentencing, while intensifying community control and giving the public
unprecedented access to, and involvement in, criminal justice processes and decision-
making: three strikes, sexual predator legislation, Megan’s Law and derivatives, to name
just a few. We are, of course, talking about the punishment of crime in the US. And yet,
in the mid-1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States (US) was 110 per 100,000
of population – the highest amongst the Western democracies admittedly, but not
Corresponding author:
Professor John Pratt, Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington,
New Zealand
Email: john.pratt@vuw.ac.nz
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