Understanding mass incarceration as a grand social experiment

• Date: 25 August 2009
• Pages: 159-191
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2009)0000047008
• Published date: 25 August 2009
• Author: Natasha A. Frost,Todd R. Clear

UNDERSTANDING MASS

INCARCERATION AS A GRAND

SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

Natasha A. Frost and Todd R. Clear

ABSTRACT

Prison populations in the United States have increased in every year since

1973 – during depressions and in times of economic growth, with rising and

falling crime rates, and in times of war and peace. Accomplishing this

historically unprecedented penal pattern has required a serious policy agenda

that has remained focused on punishment as a goal for more than a

generation. This paper seeks to understand that policy orientation from the

framework of a social experiment. It explores the following questions: how

does the penal experiment – which we have called the Punishment Imperative

– compare to other ‘‘grand’’ social experiments? What were its assumptions?

What forms did the experiment take? What lessons can be learned from it?

What is the future of the grand social experiment in mass incarceration?

The term ‘‘experiment,’’ however, carries connotations quite different in the natural

sciences than in social developments. It is the rule, indeed almost inevitable, that an

experiment in the physical sciences does not disturb the course of the natural events with

which it is concerned. Just the opposite is the case with an experiment in current social

life. We are told that if an experiment in the New Deal does not turn out well, it will be

dropped and something else devised. The implication is that when the experiment is

Special Issue: New Perspectives on Crime and Criminal Justice

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 47, 159–191

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ISSN: 1059-4337/doi:10.1108/S1059-4337(2009)0000047008

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dropped, nothing has happened. But this is just the opposite of the fact; when an

experiment is introduced into a set of social relations, these are modified, and

modifications persist after the experiment has been withdrawn.

– Social experiments, 1935

In the same week that New York’s former (and now disgraced) Governor

Elliott Spitzer announced plans to begin closing prisons in New York

(Confessore, 2007), Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, announced that

California would be sending more than 7,000 prisoners to private prisons in

other states to relieve overcrowding (Vogel, 2007).

1

Those contrasting

incarceration policies should stand as a clear indication that what a place

does in terms of prison expansion is not necessarily a reflection of what has

been happening with crime in that place. Crime has been declining

nationwide for more than a dozen years – indeed, over the past decade,

we have seen the largest sustained declines in crime since World War II

(Zimring, 2007). In keeping with the national trend, both New York and

California have also seen notable declines in crime since 1993 (Travis &

Waul, 2002). New York’s response to the crime decline – start closing

prisons; California’s response – send prisoners out of state to stave off court

interference (which has since followed anyway (see Egelko & Buchanan,

2009)).

Since the early 1970s, reliance on incarceration as a sanction has increased

so consistently and steadily that we have reached the point where the term

‘‘incarceration’’ is all too frequently preceded by the word ‘‘mass’’ (e.g.,

Clear, 2007;Garland, 2001a;Gottschalk,2006;Lynch & Sabol, 2004;Patillo,

Weiman, & Western, 2004). Long gone are the days when incarceration was

reserved for only the most serious, violent, or recalcitrant offenders. Gone

also are the days when incarceration was used reluctantly as a last resort. We

now incarcerate first-time offenders and career criminals; we incarcerate

violent criminals, but also no shortage of drug and property offenders; we

incarcerate the very young and the very old. Women and girls are being

incarcerated at rates unprecedented in U.S. history (Frost, Greene, & Pranis,

2006). In our quest to incarcerate our way out of crime, it seems few have

been spared. Evidence shows that we are not only quicker to send someone

to prison but more willing than ever before to send them there for protracted

periods of time (Blumstein & Beck, 2005). We are also more inclined to use

the prison than any other Western democracy. Indeed, the United States has

the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world

(Pew Charitable Trusts, 2007).

We no longer simply rely on incarceration as a punishment response of

limited or last resort, our commitment to a policy of incarceration is now so

NATASHA A. FROST AND TODD R. CLEAR160

entrenched that we have created the problem of mass incarceration. The

penal system has always been an institution of social and political

significance. Today, however, it is embedded as a cultural power. In our

life of symbols, the penal system is ever-present on television, in movies, and

on the written page. Mass incarceration is not just a culturally powerful

symbol, but it is now a tangible fact in real lives more than was even

imaginable a few decades ago. Today the United States incarcerates more

than 2.3 million people – or 1 in 136 of its residents (Harrison & Beck, 2006).

At least 1 in every 36 Americans now has ‘‘prison experience’’ (Bonczar,

2003). Prison is no longer an elusive, ominous, distant place that many fear

but few ever experience. What was at one time a back-up institution,

infrequently used, and a bit curious to the everyday person is now a core fact

of present-day life. Unfortunately, prison and jail have become routine

features in the lives of an increasing number of Americans living in the areas

most affected by our incarceration policies (Fagan, 2004).

In this article, we propose that America’s recent experience with

incarceration might be best understood as a grand social experiment. We

describe the ever-growing American use of the prison – a pattern that has

now lasted longer than a generation – as a social experiment in the grand

tradition of utilitarian political ideas in American history. We argue that for

more than the last 30 years, American penal policy has been dominated by

an ideology in which punishment became an imperative, and the prison

became a penalty of choice. We call this social experiment the Punishment

Imperative. By using the term ‘‘imperative,’’ we imply a kind of structured

intellectual economy in which the idea of punishment – as opposed to other

ideas such as reform or reintegration – becomes so powerful that it drowns

out any other voices in the discussion about penal policy. We hold that the

Punishment Imperative arose when all options disappeared (or at least lost

legitimacy) in the face of broad acceptance of the need for a punitive

response to crime (or, more accurately, public alarm about crime). Punitive

ideas became an irresistible force in post-conviction policy, and no idea

could find a hearing unless it first accepted the logic of the need for more –

ever more – punishment.

Unlike many grand social experiments, enacted by political leaders taking

advantage of the co-alignment of forces taking place at a particular point in

time, the Punishment Imperative is an experiment that has maintained

strength for decades and has been embraced across the political spectrum.

Nonetheless, it has been a major change in social policy enacted in order to

gain certain utilitarian ends, and may thus be seen as a classic kind of grand

social experiment in the pragmatic American tradition.

Understanding Mass Incarceration as a Grand Social Experiment 161