Chapter 35 Essay questions

  1. How did the emergence of welfare states in the early 20th century alter the aims and institutions of penal policy?
  2. How has the emergence of neoliberalism and welfare state retrenchment affected penal policy since the 1980s?
  3. How would you explain the observed tendency for penal policy and welfare policy to co-vary over time?
  4. In criminal justice policy, what is the difference between a ‘penal-welfarist’ and a ‘welfarist’ approach?
  5. Discuss the claim that penal practices and welfare practices are best understood as alternative modes of governing the poor.
  6. Societies with generous welfare states tend to have low rates of imprisonment, whilst societies with more restrictive welfare states tend to exhibit higher imprisonment rates. How would you explain this observed correlation? Does it help explain American mass incarceration?
  7. Critics of criminal justice have sometimes pressed for a shift in crime control policy away from policing and towards social services. What do they hope to achieve by this shift? What are the obstacles that stand in their way?
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