Inter-Party Competition, Public Electoral Pressure, and Democratic Strength: Refining Political Explanations of Incarceration Trends in the U.S., 1980 – 2010

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/07340168211061152
• Published date: 01 June 2023
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Inter-Party Competition,

Public Electoral Pressure,

and Democratic Strength:

Ref‌ining Political Explanations

of Incarceration Trends in the

U.S., 1980 –2010

Pavel V. Vasiliev

1

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to advance the politics of mass imprisonment literature by testing

and specifying the macro-explanations of the state-level incarceration change in the United States

(U.S.) between 1980 and 2010. Specif‌ically, I account for mechanisms of inter-party competition

and public electoral pressure neglected in prior research. To accomplish this goal, I utilize random

coeff‌icient models designed to control for repeated annual measures of state-level data that over-

whelm traditional analytic techniques. Findings suggest that violent crime, partisan aff‌iliation of state

legislators and governors, probation rates, citizen ideology, marijuana decriminalization, and

recidivist-focused laws are associated with incarceration as hypothesized, as well as the African

American presence net of crime and socioeconomic disadvantage. Contributing to the theoretical

debates on democracy and punishment, this paper demonstrates that inter-party competition and

public electoral pressure amplify incarceration in the context of Democratic Party dominance,

where no liberalizing effects of competition were found. I conclude that legal and extralegal factors

are associated with incarceration and suggest that the public did not oppose criminal jus tice expan-

sion via democratic feedback mechanisms, so both penal populism (Pratt, 2008) and popular puni-

tivism (Campbell et al., 2017) are valid interpretations of imprisonment politics during the analyzed

period.

Keywords

incarceration, crime policy, race, penal populism

1

Department of Sociology and Criminology, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Pavel V. Vasiliev, Department of Sociology and Criminology, Western Kentucky University, 1906 College Heights Blvd,

Bowling Green, KY 42101-1057, USA.

Email: pavel.vasiliev@wku.edu

Article

Criminal Justice Review

2023, Vol. 48(2) 168-186

© 2021 Georgia State University

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/07340168211061152

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Introduction

The magnitude of current U.S. incarceration is a global anomaly, as 21% of the world’s inmates are

held in American prisons and jails as of 2016 while only 5% of the planet’s population resides in the

country (Carson, 2020; Walmsley, 2015; Zeng, 2018). Yet, for the four decades between 1930 and

1970, U.S. incarceration rates had been relatively invariant and low, averaging at 110.2 inmates per

100,000 (Zimring, 2010), similar to European countries (Lacey, 2008). American prison growth,

which more than quadrupled the total incarceration rate, began in 1973 and lasted almost four

decades until its deceleration was brought about by the recession of 2007 (Brown, 2013). Seen on

the subnational level, the growth is even more striking, as 11 U.S. states had incarceration rates

below 70 per 100,000 as late as 1980, which is reminiscent of the Nordic “penal exceptionalism”

(Pratt & Eriksson, 2013), while only four U.S. states had incarceration rates below 200 per

100,000 in 2010. For instance, North Dakota and Louisiana grew from 28 and 211 inmates per

100,000 in 1980 to 220 and 868 inmates in 2010, respectively. This growth is not over yet, with

12 states showing an increase in imprisonment between 2007 and 2018 (Bureau of Justice

Statistics, 2017; Carson, 2020). Although most states no longer grow, we are facing incarceration

levels beyond the historical norm for the U.S. as a nation.

Quantitative research, with some exceptions (Campbell et al., 2015; Phelps & Pager, 2016;

Vasiliev, 2013), has employed methods not optimal for analysis of change at the state level and

has neglected the specif‌ic mechanisms whereby structural factors shape the penal outcomes yielding

broad, underdetermined theories (see Garland, 2018). The present paper addresses these methodolog-

ical and theoretical limitations by replicating and ref‌ining Smith’s (2004) study of incarceration in the

U.S. states. First, I utilize random coeff‌icient models, which produce accurate standard errors when

analyzing repeated annual measures of state-level data that challenge the ordinary least squares

(OLS) regression (Luke, 2004) used in the replicated study. Second, to extend prior work that

solely focused on electoral competition (Stucky et al., 2005), I analyze both aspects of the competi-

tion including the measure of inter-party rivalry for, and control of, the state government utilizing the

fol|ded Ranney (1976) index, along with the Holbrook and Van Dunk (1993) index of electoral com-

petition, which is more appropriate for public pressure and policy outcome hypotheses. Third, to

extend the work on historical contingency of the incarceration predictors, I examine whether the

competition effects changed over time using detailed annual rather than decennial data (Campbell

et al., 2015). The purpose of this study is to test and specify political explanations of incarceration

change using an analytic technique appropriate for state-level inquiry while focusing on democratic

feedback mechanisms of inter-party competition and voter pressure in order to advance criminology

beyond broad functionalist theories (Garland, 2018) and contribute to penal populism (Jennings

et al., 2017; Pratt, 2008) literature. Future developments in the f‌ield might be shaped by new pro-

cesses and actors, but research emphasizes continuities in penal determinants and innovations

(Amidon, 2018; Green, 2015; Sliva, 2016); hence, the signif‌icance of this study.

The Partisan Use of the Incarceration Argument:

Elite Rivalry and Constituency Pressure

The literature suggests that incarceration is a social policy championed by the Republican Party since

1964, when Senator Goldwater programmatically proclaimed that “moderation in pursuit of justice is

no virtue”(Schneider, 2003, p. 245; Tonry, 2009). Republican politicians may favor incarceration as

it is consistent with their agenda of individual responsibility for street criminals, or it can be an

attempt to gain support of less-aff‌luent status-anxious voters unsettled by the extension of voting

rights to previously disenfranchised African Americans (Beckett & Godoy, 2008; Costelloe et al.,

2009; Finckenauer, 1978; Jacobs & Jackson, 2010). An analysis of the salience of crime in the

Vasiliev 169