Explaining national differences in the use of imprisonment

Abstract

Unprecedented expansions of penal control have occurred in recent decades in different parts of the world. American imprisonment rates have increased nearly fivefold and Dutch rates sixfold since the early 1970s. Substantial changes of differing magnitudes may be observed in many countries. This increase in states’ willingness to use penal power has provoked criminological and sociological explanations, most from writers in North America and English-speaking countries. An unspoken assumption that developments in the United States and England and Wales occurred elsewhere has influenced efforts to formulate general explanations of changes taking place under general conditions of late modern society. However, things have not happened in the same way everywhere. Alongside general growth in cultures of control, there are divergent trends and country-specific deviations. The Scandinavian countries with their more restrained penal policies serve as one important counter-example, but there are others. To overlook these differences may lead to overgeneralized and simplified pictures of the dynamics of penal change. This essay explores explanations for differences in penal severity in industrialized countries. The focus is not restricted to the Anglophonic world but also encompasses the Scandinavian countries, Western and Eastern continental Europe and the Baltic countries.1

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