Mass Probation: Toward a More Robust Theory of State Variation in Punishment

Abstract:     

Scholarship on the expansion of the criminal justice system in the U.S. has almost exclusively focused on imprisonment, investigating why some states lead the world in incarceration rates while others have restrained growth. Yet for most states, the predominant form of punishment is probation, and many seemingly progressive states supervise massive numbers of adults on community supervision. Drawing on Bureau of Justice Statistics data from 1980 and 2010, I analyze this expansion of mass probation and develop a typology of control regimes that theorizes both the scale and type of formal punishment states employ. Mass penal control developed not just in states like Georgia and Texas, but also in surprising locales like Minnesota and Washington, which channeled that growth into probation. The results demonstrate that scholars’ conclusions about the causes and consequences of the carceral state must be revised to take into account the expansion of probation.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 35

Keywords: probation; penal theory; mass imprisonment