Policy Learning and Criminal Justice Reform in the U.S. States

• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X21994890
• Author: Garrick L. Percival
• Date: 01 December 2020
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Subject Matter: Special Issue 2020

Special Issue 2020

Policy Learning and Criminal

Justice Reform in the U.S.

States

Garrick L. Percival

1

Abstract

This article investigates criminal justice reform in the U.S. states through a policy learning frame-

work. A comparative case study of reform in Texas and California reveals a policy learning process

conditioned by each state’s political environment. Republicans in Texas embraced reform after

conservative policy entrepreneurs framed the issue in a manner that matched lawmakers’ core

ideological beliefs. Republicans received no such messages in California. With few electoral incen-

tives to support reform, Republicans in California demonstrated little interest in learning from the

policy experiences of co-partisans in earlier adopting states. Overall, the analysis shows how policy

learning shapes Republicans’ relative support for criminal justice reform and the dynamic ways

Republican leadership on the issue helps facilitate state policy adoption.

Keywords

criminal justice politics, policy learning, policy reform

Introduction

A national criminal justice reform movement is

well underway in the United States (Schoenfeld

2011). Over the past fifteen years several nota-

ble bills have been signed into law at the

national level. The Second Chance Act (2007)

expanded prisoner reentry programs to assist

returning inmates reintegrate into free societ y.

The Fair Sentencing Act (2010) reduced sen-

tences for crack cocaine. The law marked the

first time Congress shortened federal penalties

for drugs in more than four decades (Percival

2015). In 2017 the First Step Act shortened

mandatory sentences for nonviolent federal

drug crimes and expanded rehabilitation oppor-

tunities in federal prisons (Kelley and Rizer

2019).

These laws marked an important departure

from law and order politics that characterized

criminal justice policy making over the past

generation (Beckett and Sasson 2000; Simon

2007). Even so, federal reforms have produced

only modest reductions in the overall incarcera-

tion rate.

1

The federal government plays a

small role in the administration of criminal law.

Nearly 90 percent of the 2.1 million prisoners

in the U.S. are confined in state or local correc-

tional institutions (U.S. Department of Justice

2020). Ultimately the extent to which the U.S.

1

Department of Political Science, San Jose State University,

CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Garrick L. Percival, Department of Political Science, San

Jose State University, One Washington Square, San Jose,

CA 95112, USA.

Email: garrick.percival@sjsu.edu

State and Local GovernmentReview

2020, Vol. 52(4) 321-332

ªThe Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0160323X21994890

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