ABSTRACT
For decades, at least since the 1960s, the notion that the justice system is 'too soft' on crime has been a common theme in public opinion and political discourse in the United States. Despite evidence to the contrary, large portions of the public, and most politicians, believe that increasingly punitive measures such as lengthy mandatory prison sentences, will reduce crime (Irwin and Austin 1994; Scheingold 1984 ). The United States thus went on an 'imprisonment binge', more than doubling the size of the imprisoned population between 1980 and 1992, and surpassing South Africa as the nation with the highest incarceration rate in the world (Irwin and Austin 1994). Although it may be partially true that the increasingly punitive public attitudes and public policies began as a response to the rising crime rates of the 1960s, the punitive response has continued even though crime rates have levelled off and even declined. These contradictions - the beliefs that the US criminal justice system is too lenient in the face of increasingly punitive measures, and that tougher sanctions are necessary to stop 'rising' crime rates - are precipitating a fiscal crisis at the state and local levels, as increasing resources are spent on building and operating prisons. They may also precipitate a crisis in legitimation, as increasingly punitive sanctions inevitably generate cases where justice and fairness are called into question.
