Research Handbook on Penal Policy

Edited by Alessandro Corda, Reader, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

‘The Research Handbook on Penal Policy brings together an impressive group of contributors, providing readers with a remarkably rich and wide-ranging set of reflections. The result is an unusually valuable collection that deserves to become a standard reference for scholars and researchers.’

• ContentsSeries editors’ preface xviPreface and acknowledgements xviii1 Introduction to the Research Handbook on Penal Policy: What is “penal policy”? Why does it matter? 1Alessandro CordaPART I FRAMINGS AND ORIENTATIONS2 Penal policy and penal change 21Ashley T. Rubin3 Policy transfer, policy mobility, and policy hegemony in the penal field 43Alessandro Corda4 Penal populism and populist politics 65John Pratt5 Punishment and technocracy: Penal populism, elitism, and the “buffered ideal” in the sociology of punishment 86Victor Lund Shammas6 The influence of human rights on penal policymaking 110Mattia Pinto7 The ‘collateral effects’ of criminalization choices: From conceptual definitions to operational strategies 131Martina GalliPART II UNDERLYING STRUCTURAL/NORMATIVE DIMENSIONS8 Should the criminal law be a last resort? 153Douglas Husak9 Proportionality and penal policy 170Youngjae Lee10 Legitimacy and moderation in penal policy: Penological evidence between penal populism and penal hope 189Sonja Snacken11 Political ideologies and penal policy 214Zelia A. Gallo12 Political economy and penal policies 237Ignacio González-Sánchez and José A. BrandarizPART III JURISDICTIONAL INSIGHTS13 The politics of sentencing reform in the context of mass incarceration in the United States 254Katherine Beckett14 Crisis and penal policymaking in England and Wales: Concepts, theories and future directions 271Harry Annison and Thomas Guiney15 Penal policy and punishment in Brazil: Punitivism and the punitive turn from a Global South perspective 290Marcos César Alvarez, Fernando Salla and Maiara Corrêa16 Punishment and penal policies in the People’s Republic of China: Instrumentalism, bifurcation, and evolutionary values 309Enshen Li17 The penal policy of the European Union: Scope, legitimacy, and effectiveness 328Nina PeršakPART IV COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES AND CONTRASTS18 Nordic penal policies and practices: Myths and realities 346Klara Hermansson19 Challenges of comparative penal policy research in penal systems of the Global South: Some lessons from South America 362Bertha Prado Manrique20 Why dictators decarcerate: Understanding decarceration trends in Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan 383Gavin Slade, Umidjon Toshimov and Alexei Trochev21 Bringing law back into penal policy research: The evolution of criminal legislation in France, Germany, and beyond 402Johanna NickelsPART V PENAL POLICY ON THE GROUND22 A very British arms race: Three decades of law-and-order politics 427Shami Chakrabarti23 Penal policy reform at the micro level: Reflections on penal policy change in the criminalization of grooming in Australia 438Anne-Marie McAlinden24 Reforming policing from the White House: The challenges of implementing police reform through executive order 447Catherine Crump25 Yesterday’s terrorist: Sirhan Sirhan and the birth of just deserts 466Hadar Aviram26 Developing international prison standards: A personal perspective 487Dirk van Zyl Smit27 Inside the penal policy control room: An academic’s perspective 506Gian Luigi GattaPART VI LOOKING FORWARD: CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS, DEBATES AND PROSPECTS28 Danger, blame, and hostility: The cultural structure of penality 520Henrique Carvalho29 Penal policy and technological development 537Manja Skočir and Aleš Završnik30 Algorithmic futures: Risk assessment and prediction in the penal realm 557Robert Werth, Fernando Avila and Chloe Haimson31 Questioning the logic of criminalization and penal policy: Abolitionist aspirations and the search for transformative justice 579Michael J. Coyle and David Scott32 Final thoughts: Penal policy in an increasingly complex world 598Alessandro Corda