The Prisoners' Dilemma: Political Economy and Punishment in Contemporary Democracies

The Hamlyn Lectures

by Nicola Lacey

Over the last two decades, and in the wake of increases in recorded crime and other social changes, British criminal justice policy has become increasingly politicised as an index of governments' competence. New and worrying developments, such as the inexorable rise of the US prison population and the rising force of penal severity, seem unstoppable in the face of popular anxiety about crime. But is this inevitable? Nicola Lacey argues that harsh 'penal populism' is not the inevitable fate of all contemporary democracies. Notwithstanding a degree of convergence, globalisation has left many of the key institutional differences between national systems intact, and these help to explain the striking differences in the capacity for penal tolerance in otherwise relatively similar societies. Only by understanding the institutional preconditions for a tolerant criminal justice system can we think clearly about the possible options for reform within particular systems.

254 pages, Paperback

First published May 29, 2008

Reviews

[FiveBooks]

Professor David Downes has chosen to discuss Nicola Lacey’s The Prisoners’ Dilemma: Political Economy and Punishment in Contemporary Democracies on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject -Crime and Punishment, saying that:

“…In the first-past-the-post adversarial elections in neo-liberal societies, crime control has become a competitive arms race with electoral implications; in the co-ordinated market economies like Germany and the Nordic countries criminal justice policies are shielded in key respects from partisan politics…

Lacey finds grounds for cautious optimism in the extent to which these countries have maintained penal moderation in the teeth of strong pressures to ‘govern through crime’ and strong welfare states in the face of pressures to privatise and marketise health, education and social services more generally..…”

The full interview is available here: http://fivebooks.com/interviews/david...