International and Comparative Criminal Justice and Urban Governance Convergence and Divergence in Global, National and Local Settings
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 International and comparative criminal justice and urban governance
- PART 1 International criminal justice
- PART 2 Comparative penal policies
- 8 Penal comparisons: puzzling relations
- 9 Why globalisation doesn't spell convergence: models of institutional variation and the comparative political economy of punishment
- 10 Penal excess and penal exceptionalism: welfare and imprisonment in Anglophone and Scandinavian societies
- 11 The impact of multi-level governance on crime control and punishment
- 12 Explaining Canada's imprisonment rate: the inadequacy of simple explanations
- 13 US youth justice policy transfer in Canada: we'll take the symbols but not the substance
- 14 Liberty, equality and justice: democratic culture and punishment
- PART 3 Comparative crime control and urban governance
- Index
- References
12 - Explaining Canada's imprisonment rate: the inadequacy of simple explanations
from PART 2 - Comparative penal policies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2011
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 International and comparative criminal justice and urban governance
- PART 1 International criminal justice
- PART 2 Comparative penal policies
- 8 Penal comparisons: puzzling relations
- 9 Why globalisation doesn't spell convergence: models of institutional variation and the comparative political economy of punishment
- 10 Penal excess and penal exceptionalism: welfare and imprisonment in Anglophone and Scandinavian societies
- 11 The impact of multi-level governance on crime control and punishment
- 12 Explaining Canada's imprisonment rate: the inadequacy of simple explanations
- 13 US youth justice policy transfer in Canada: we'll take the symbols but not the substance
- 14 Liberty, equality and justice: democratic culture and punishment
- PART 3 Comparative crime control and urban governance
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
Canada does not fit easily into the typology of political economies and their penal tendencies proposed by Cavadino and Dignan (2006a; 2006b). Based on a study of penal systems in twelve contemporary capitalist countries (not including Canada), these scholars demonstrate a relationship between a nation's political economy on the one hand and the punitiveness of its penal culture (particularly as expressed by its rate of imprisonment) on the other hand. Indeed, they suggest that certain political regimes (e.g. neoliberalism, conservative corporatism, etc.) have distinct penal landscapes (i.e. more or less punitive penal policies).
In terms of penal policies, most observers would probably assume that Canada would fit neatly within those nations described as having political economies and penal tendencies that could be categorised as neoliberal. This placement would certainly seem obvious given geographic, economic and cultural proximity to the country highlighted by Cavadino and Dignan as the ‘archetypical example’ of this group (USA). In addition, it would seem natural that Canada would be grouped with the ‘other examples’ of the neoliberal political economy listed by these scholars – England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – given their historical (e.g. as members of the Commonwealth) and institutional (similar legal systems) ties.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- International and Comparative Criminal Justice and Urban GovernanceConvergence and Divergence in Global, National and Local Settings, pp. 304 - 330Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
References
and (1973) ‘A theory of the stability of punishment’, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 64, 198–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (1976) ‘The dynamics of a homeostatic punishment process’, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 67, 317–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1993) Crime Prevention in Canada: Toward a National Strategy, 12th Report of the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General.
and (2006a) ‘Penal policy and political economy’, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 6(4), 435–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(Chair) (1988) Taking Responsibility: Report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General on its Review of Sentencing, Conditional Release and Related Aspects of Corrections, House of Commons, Canada.Google Scholar
and (2006) ‘Countering punitiveness: understanding stability in Canada's imprisonment rate’, Law & Society Review, 40 (2), 325–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1993) Third Session of the 34th Parliament, February 1993.
and (2007) Policy Transfer and Criminal Justice: Exploring US Influence over British Crime Control Policy, Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
(2008) The Prisoner's Dilemma: Political Economy and Punishment in Contemporary Democracies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2007) ‘Penal policy in Scandinavia’ in (ed.), Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. 36, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 297–369.Google Scholar
(1989) Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada, Toronto: Canadian-American Committee, C. D. Howe Institute.Google Scholar
(2006) ‘Jack Layton: getting results for people’, Platform 2006.
(2003) ‘The hare and the tortoise: dangerousness and sex offender policy in the United States and Canada’, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 45, 43–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2008a) ‘Scandinavian exceptionalism in an era of penal excess, Part I: The nature and roots of Scandinavian exceptionalism’, British Journal of Criminology, 48, 119–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2008b) ‘Scandinavian exceptionalism in an era of penal excess, Part II: Does Scandinavian exceptionalism have a future?’, British Journal of Criminology, 48, 275–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2008c) ‘When penal populism stops: legitimacy, scandal and the power to punish in New Zealand’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 41(3), 364–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2003) The Challenge of Crime: Rethinking Our Response, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
and (1998) ‘Understanding provincial variation in incarceration rates’, Canadian Journal of Criminology, 40(3), 305–22.Google Scholar
(1999) ‘Why are U.S. incarceration rates so high?’, Crime and Delinquency, 45¸ 419–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2004) Thinking about Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2009) Instability within Stability: Conflicting Trends beneath Canada's Aggregate Incarceration Rate, Unpublished MA Thesis. Ottawa: Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa.Google Scholar
(1997) ‘Three strikes: can we return to rationality?’, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 87(2), 395–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2003) ‘The superior/provincial criminal court distinction: historical anachronism or empirical reality?’, Criminal Law Quarterly, 48, 77–109.Google Scholar
and (2007) ‘Punitive trends and stable imprisonment rates in Canada’ in (ed.), Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. 36. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 297–369.Google Scholar
and (2008) ‘America in a larger world: the future of the penal harm movement’, Criminology and Public Policy, 7(3), 473–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1996) Correctional Population Growth: Report for Federal/Provincial/Territorial Ministers Responsible for Justice, Ottawa: Solicitor General, Canada.Google Scholar
(1997) Correctional Population Growth: First Report on Progress, February 1997.
- 2
- Cited by