TY - JOUR
AU - PIQUERO, ALEX R.
AB -  16-OCT-07 RESTORE RATIONALITY TO SENTENCING POLICY ALFRED BLUMSTEIN Carnegie Mellon University ALEX R. PIQUERO John Jay College of Criminal Justice City University of New York Graduate Center One of the most striking observations about criminal justice policy since the late 1970s has been the growth of prison populations in the United States (Spelman, 2000). State and federal prison populations have grown at an exponential rate of 6% to 8% per year. This steady growth has occurred during periods of both increases and decreases in crime rates. It is only in the last few years that the growth rates have slowed to about 2% per year, with the bulk of that growth occurring in the federal prison system. This growth was preceded by a period of at least 50 years of a flat incarceration rate (Blumstein and Cohen, 1973). This transition from a flat rate to a period of rapid growth clearly reflects a regime change from a homeostatic process under control of the criminal justice system to political control, primarily by legislators. The political environment rewards those who could show that they were being “tough on crime” and made those who could be accused of being “soft on 
TI - RESTORE RATIONALITY TO SENTENCING POLICY
JF - Criminology and Public Policy
DO - 10.1111/j.1745-9133.2007.00463.x
DA - 2007-11-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/restore-rationality-to-sentencing-policy-kvHcB9CFe0
SP - 679
VL - 6
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -