Book Review: V. Barker The Politics of Imprisonment: How the Democratic Process Shapes the Way America Punishes Offenders New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009. ix, 252 pp. $35.00. ISBN 0195370023

AuthorMonte Staton
DOI10.1177/0734016810385200
Published date01 June 2011
Date01 June 2011
Subject MatterArticles
of a society allow such behavior and attitudes to construct normality and here is where restorative
justice may be of important value. If communities can meet in restorative justice forums and begin to
reshape the perceptual construction of ethical and unethical behavior in relation to violence against
women within such processes then the cultural ethical standards may begin to change shape and
form within the affected communities. By combining ideals, values, and goals of feminist organiza-
tions, grassroots organizations, political forces, cultural aspects, and restorative justice processes,
the authors contend transformative justice will hopefully be the much needed emerging result.
V. Barker
The Politics of Imprisonment: How the Democratic Process Shapes the
Way America Punishes Offenders New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.
ix, 252 pp. $35.00. ISBN 0195370023
Reviewed by: Monte Staton, Loyola University, Chicago, IL, USA
DOI: 10.1177/0734016810385200
Some of the most important research in U.S. prison studies focuses on explaining anddetermining
the long-termconsequences of the steep, nationwide rise in incarceration rates beginningin the 1970s.
In The Politics of Imprisonment: How the Democratic Process Shapes the Way America Punishes
Offenders, Vanessa Barker explains that there has been a tendency in the research literature to focus
on the general, national trend of massive incarceration and downplay comparative research focusing
on the variability in imprisonment trends recognizable among states. Barker writes that at state level
American penal sanctioning is fragmented and sometimes contradictory, the result of both reactive
politics and long-term planning, and much more complicated than the general picture of increased
imprisonmentoften presented. She states that thepurpose of her book is to document and explain var-
iation in U.S. penal sanctioning, although the study presented is limited to three states: California,
Washington, and New York. These states are chosen in part because California has maintained high
rates of incarceration relative to other states, Washingtonhas maintained relatively lowimprisonment
rates, and New Yorkhas maintained moderate incarceration rates.Barker compares the ways in which
each of the three statesdeveloped its distinctive ‘‘penal regime,’’ a termshe uses to refer collectively to
the discourse on crime, conceptualizations of justice, the rationale for punishment, the character and
type of sanctions, and imprisonment rates present in a state.
According to Barker, the period of the late 1960s and early 1970s was a crucial time in the
development of the penal regimes of California, Washington, and New York. During this time of
widespread social unrest and change in America, the penal regimes of each of the three states began
to pursue a different strategy, each having long-term consequences recognizable today. In the late
1960s, each state faced a rise in crime, followed by an overload on their criminal justice systems
causing citizens and officials to question the rehabilitative ideal of imprisonment, which had been
in place for decades. Although one might expect that states would have responded to this situation
with similar policies, Barker reveals how the course taken by each state involved understandings of
crime and rationales for punishment, which were largely shaped by the character of political
structures and collective agency of ordinary people unique to each state. She explains that political
structures are the institutional and administrative organization of the state, and collective agency is
the mobilization of ordinary people in the policy-making process; taken together these two dimen-
sions form modes of governance. Barker claims that the subtle but crucial differences in political
institutions and democratic traditions among the states help explain variation in penal regimes.
Furthermore, she claims that penal regime change, continuity, and difference are significantly
218 Criminal Justice Review 36(2)

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