penal populism
{{Short description|Media driven political process}}
{{use dmy dates|date=March 2023}}
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{{Criminology and penology}}
Penal populism is populism related to criminal justice. It tends to manifest in the run up to elections when political parties put forward hard-line policies which they believe the public wants, rather than evidence-based policies based on their effectiveness at dealing with crime and associated social problems.{{cite web |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317960480 |title=The Roots of "Penal Populism": the Role of Media and Politics |author=MARGARITA DOBRYNINA |date=June 2017 |publisher=Kriminologijos Studijos}} Penal populism can be media driven political process whereby politicians compete with each other to impose tougher prison sentences on offenders based on a perception that crime is out of control.[https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/penal-populism/ Penal Populism]
Origins
The phrase was coined in 1993 by Anthony Bottoms,{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S3wBAwAAQBAJ&q=penal+populism |page=3 |title=Penal Populism, Sentencing Councils and Sentencing Policy |publisher=Routledge |author=Karen Gelb |year=2014|isbn=9781317821847 }} when he labeled it one of the four main influences on contemporary criminal justice.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wNB8AgAAQBAJ&q=penal+populism |page=2 |title=Penal Populism |publisher=Taylor & Francis |author=John Pratt |year=2007|isbn=9781134173297 }} It is a process that ignores or minimizes the views of criminologists, justice professionals and penal experts, claiming instead to represent the views of “the people” about the need for tougher punishment for criminal offending. David Garland, What’s Wrong with Penal Populism? Politics, the Public, and Criminological Expertise, Asian Journal of Criminology volume 16, pages257–277 (2021)
It has been theorized that the rise of penal populism has brought an increase in the repressiveness of various nation's criminal laws, including that of the United Kingdom,{{cite book |page=220 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QIvp2Jg7yRkC&q=penal+populism |title=When Children Kill Children: Penal Populism and Political Culture |publisher=Oxford University Press |author=David A. Green |year=2012|isbn = 978-0-19-162976-1}} Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper,Kelly, James, & Kate Puddister. “Criminal Justice Policy during the Harper Era: Private Member’s Bills, Penal Populism, and the Criminal Code of Canada.” Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société 32, no. 3 (2017): 391-415. DOI: 10.1017/cls.2017.25 and the United States during the War on Drugs.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FetcCAAAQBAJ&dq=penal+populism+george+bush&pg=PT197 |page=197 |publisher=University of Oxford Press |title=Penal Populism and Public Opinion: Lessons from Five Countries |author=Julian V. Roberts, Loretta J. Stalans, David Indermaur, Mike Hough |year=2002|isbn=978-0-19-028577-7 }} The resurgence of penal populism in the early 21st-century lead to streams of populism flowing deeper from penal fields into mainstream society. This shift from penal to political populism was precipitated by two interconnected factors: the impact of the Great Recession and the mass movement of peoples across the globe.{{cite web |url= https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2903819
|title= Penal Populism: The End of Reason |author= John Pratt & Michelle Miao |date=2017 |publisher= The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 2017-02, 9 (13) Nova Criminis 71-105 (2017)|ssrn= 2903819 }}
Scholars argue that the concept of penal populism may imply an implicit form of penal elitism, that is, the "belief that penal policymaking should not be subjected to public debate and that matters pertaining to crime control and punishment should be left to experts or specialists."{{Cite journal |last=Shammas |first=Victor L. |date=2020-12-01 |title=Penal Elitism: Anatomy of a Professorial Ideology |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-019-09463-7 |journal=Critical Criminology |language=en |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=759–774 |doi=10.1007/s10612-019-09463-7 |issn=1572-9877|hdl=10852/74761 |hdl-access=free }}