The Logic of Prison Growht
| Date | 01 May 1994 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1994.tb01955.x |
| Published date | 01 May 1994 |
REVIEW ARTICLE
The
Logic
of
Prison
Growth
Andrew
von
Hirsch*
Nils Christie,
Crime Control
as
Industry,
London: Routledge,
1993, 192
pp,
pb
f
10.99.
Most readers will be aware of the dramatic increase
in
the use of imprisonment
which has occurred during the past decade. What is less fully understood is how
widespread
this
development has been and what its causes are. Nils Christie, in
his
latest book, attempts to document the extent of increased reliance on incarceration
in Western countries and to explain why
this
is occurring. In the first of these
tasks, he succeeds admirably.
In
the second, that of identifying the causes, he is
less successful.
Increased imprisonment means more suffering for those punished. The suffering
is not visible, however, and documenting the increase means presenting numbers.
Numbers can numb the minds of most readers (myself included), but Christie
makes them come alive. The figures, words and graphs which he presents paint a
devastating picture of the prison sanction running amok. One is given a clear sense
of how extensive the rise in imprisonment has been, in terms both of the number of
jurisdictions affected and the degree of the increase in many of those jurisdictions.
Providing such a picture is itself an accomplishment.
Christie contends, throughout
his
book, that the increased use of imprisonment
cannot be defended on its merits. In this, he surely is right. The increase is not
reflective of a rise in the number or the seriousness
of
crimes committed. It cannot
be justified in crime-control terms, for crime control has not been improved.’
I
would add that it cannot be justified
in
terms of penal desert: proportionate
sentences do not have to be severe ones; indeed, a policy of proportionality can
(and should) be implemented with significantly
reduced
sanction levels.
The author turns his attention, then, to why this ‘great confinement’ is taking
place. The causes to which he points
are:
(i) the influence of a crime-prevention
‘industry’;
(ii)
the growing predominance of neo-classical and proportionality-
oriented sentencing theories; and (iii) the effort to control and intimidate the
‘deviant’ classes. None of these, in my view, constitutes a satisfactory explanation.
The Crime-Prevention Industry’s Expansionary Dynamic
Christie entitles his book
Crime
Control
as
Industry.
His contention is that crime
control (and, particularly, imprisonment) has become a self-perpetuating and
*Institute of Criminology and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University; School of Criminal Justice,
Rutgers University.
For example,
the
extraordinary increase in prison levels in the United
States
has
had little impact on
crime rates. For an analysis,
see
National Academy of Sciences, Panel on Understanding and Control
of Violent Behaviour,
Report
in
Reiss and Roth
(eds),
Understanding
and
Preventing Violence
(Washington, DC: National Academy
Press,
1993),
at
6-7,
292-294.
2
See
von
Hirsch,
Censure
and
Sanctions
(Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993)
ch
5.
1
0
The Modern Law Review
Limited
1994 (MLR 57:3, May). Published by Blachvell Publishers,
108
Cowley Road,
Oxford
OX4
IJP
and 238 Main
Street,
Cambridge,
MA
02142,
USA.
476
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