THE FUTURE OF IMPRISONMENT, Michael Tonry (ed.). New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 272pp. Hardback. $45.00 / £33.95. ISBN: 0195161637.
Reviewed by Darren A. Wheeler, Department of Political Science, Northwest College. Email: darren.wheeler@northwestcollege.edu
I always find it interesting to note how often we can look at scholarly works decades old and find that we are still asking many of the same questions. The questions that Norval Morris sought answers to thirty years ago in THE FUTURE OF IMPRISONMENT are still relevant to the study of prisons today. Experience tells us that prisons are not going to fade from the criminal justice landscape and even the most optimistic observers would concede that we can, and should, do a better job of utilizing them as a form of punishment. This new collection of essays reminds us of the theoretical and practical challenges of prison reform, and that alone is valuable as we enter into the twenty-first century.
Writing in 1974, Norval Morris reflected on how prisons could be changed to approximate a “rehabilitative ideal,” while eliminating the disruptive and corruptive effects found all too commonly in prisons throughout the country. A few short years later, the prison population exploded and continued to rise dramatically through the turn of the century. In 2004, a group of scholars, inspired by Morris and led by editor Michael Tonry, has come together to publish a new edited volume in which they too consider the proper role of prisons in society. There will be readers who think the coverage of such a spectrum of issues is quite a task for one slim volume, and they will be right. Nonetheless, there are a number of insightful and thought-provoking essays in this edited volume that have a great deal to offer to those studying the myriad questions surrounding how we should decide who goes to prison and for how long, how we should treat prisoners while incarcerated, and what should be the basis for their release. This review will briefly chronicle each of the nine chapters in the book noting the strengths and weaknesses of each before evaluating the book as a whole and discussing the audiences who might find this book useful.
Michael Tonry’s opening chapter sets the stage by introducing themes that recur throughout the book. Tonry’s prison reform agenda, offered in the form of nineteen ukases, covers a wide spectrum of prison issues but argues that prison reform should be considered in a comprehensive manner to make incarceration “more effective and less damaging.” Regardless of one’s agreement with Tonry’s recommendations, the chapter provides a nice point of departure for the remaining discussions in the volume.
Part I contains chapters in which Jeffrey Fagan and Alfred Blumstein tackle the question, how much imprisonment is too much? Fagan’s New York City case study (Chapter 2) examines how the spatial effects of crime impact a neighborhood’s economic well-being, its [*871] social norm structure, family life, and the willingness of its members to support the political process. Fagan’s quantitative argument concludes that the “persistence and concentration of incarceration seem to be products not of crime, but the internalization of incarceration in the ecology of many neighborhoods” (p.48). Such a conclusion raises important questions about the longitudinal effects of imprisonment, not just on the individuals imprisoned, but also the communities in which they live.
Blumstein’s critique (Chapter 3) of rationality in sentencing provides a nice overview of the scholarly literature in this area. Echoing Morris’ call for “reasonableness” in sentencing, he argues that moderating punishment in a political environment plagued with “mindless punitiveness” is a challenge. Blumstein does see some hope in the fact that many states facing budget crises are being forced to reevaluate the (cost) effectiveness of their state criminal justice systems including mandatory minimum sentencing and the role that prisons play. Collectively, the chapters in this section feature an emphasis on the importance of the political environment in the prison reform movement.
Part II, “Going In,” deals with sentencing considerations and contains chapters by Richard Frase and Marc Miller. In Chapter Four, Frase explores limiting retributivism as a guide to sentencing. He provides a nice summary of how this concept fits into many, if not most, of the current sentencing systems seen in states throughout the country. More particularly, he approvingly notes the limiting retributivist elements in Minnesota’s penal system and argues that more states should adopt similar sentencing guidelines.
Marc Miller (Chapter 5) presents a cogent argument outlining the value of Sentencing Information Systems (SIS) as part of an overall sentencing scheme. SIS systems can take a variety of forms, but the basic idea is to systematically collect sentencing data—e.g., prior record, gender, age, length of sentence—and make it available as a tool to sentencing judges. The intent is to provide them with information regarding what fellow judges do in similar circumstances. The force of Miller’s chapter suffers slightly from an admitted reluctance by many judges in the United States to utilize such systems and the fact that most of his data come from experiments in other countries.
Part III contains chapters dedicated to a focus on prisoners’ rights in the context of prison reform. Franklin Zimring’s and Gordon Hawkins’ “Democracy and the Limits of Punishment: A Preface to Prisoners’ Rights” is one of the more intriguing chapters in the book. Worried that “public hatred of crime and criminals invites the use of extreme forms of governmental power to suppress and punish criminals” (p.157), Zimring and Hawkins urge us to view the treatment of those in the criminal justice system as a human rights issue. Fear of crime and the “politics of gratuitous deprivation” make prisons more punitive than necessary. It is problematic, they contend, that there is no powerful opposition to public desires to increase the punitiveness of prison life. They persuasively argue that it is precisely in this area, where government power is at its zenith, that meaningful oversight rooted in a fundamental [*872] respect for decency and human rights is necessary.
James Jacobs picks up on this theme in Chapter Seven, “Prison Reform Amid the Ruins of Prisoners’ Rights.” His review of the administrative, personnel, and financial problems that plague prisons today is a helpful one, but he is not sanguine about the likely effectiveness of current reform efforts—e.g., judicial activism, protests, public opinion, privatization. His preferred solution, a national service program to help staff prisons, comes off sounding more wishful than realistic and is a disappointing end to an otherwise interesting chapter.
The final section, Part IV, deals with issues related to releasing prisoners. In Chapter Eight, Kevin Reitz revives Norval Morris’ argument that prisons should not engage in “coercive” rehabilitation with a parole board having the discretion to award early release to the “rehabilitated.” While Reitz allows that post-sentencing behavior might play some role in determining when a person is released from prison, he argues that decisions regarding release should be made by judges at sentencing as opposed to parole boards at the end of the system. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Reitz finds it difficult to justify parole board discretion as necessary to accomplish most common sentencing goals and urges scholars to examine empirical findings in this area of prison reform more closely.
The book concludes with “The Future of Violence Risk Management” (Chapter 9) by John Monahan. His analysis of the relationship between the criminal justice system and the mental health powers of the state is quite thoughtful. Monahan contends that the trend toward merging the two leads to potentially harmful results. The police power of the state is being used to justify an increasing number of involuntary civil commitments, while the number of states imposing indefinite civil commitments upon those deemed likely to recidivate is rising. Monahan’s discussion of the role that the courts are playing in this process is an especially good one.
As is unfortunately the case in many edited volumes, the common themes that weave through the chapters are not necessarily apparent at first glance. Indeed, these common ideas only become apparent with a concentrated reading of the entire volume, but they are certainly worth considering. The importance of placing prison reform in our contemporary political and social context cannot be understated, nor can the need to approach reform comprehensively.
The book contains several chapters that are highly theoretical; while others are case studies dealing with specific prison-related reforms. This produces an uneven flow. Instructors teaching classes in corrections might find this book useful as a supplementary text, as it does a good job of raising a number of thought-provoking issues in the field of corrections. Those outside academia will probably find selected chapters to be more valuable depending on their particular research or vocational orientations. As a word of warning, many of the chapters presume some working knowledge of the prison reform and/or sentencing literature. Those without such a background might occasionally find themselves lost very [*873] quickly in a few chapters. As a result, this is not the best introduction to the subject for lay persons. Nevertheless, this book serves a useful purpose in acknowledging many of our theoretical origins, while evaluating our progress to date in the area of prison reform.
REFERENCES:
Morris, Norval. 1974. THE FUTURE OF IMPRISONMENT. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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© Copyright 2004 by the author, Darren A. Wheeler.