Penal optimism and second chances: The legacies of American Protestantism and the prospects for penal reform

Abstract

This article first makes the case that optimism in the reform potential of criminal offenders has recently increased among American policymakers, as evidenced by the bipartisan passage of the Second Chance Act of 2007, which encourages prisoner reentry and sets ambitious targets for recidivism reduction. It then sets this apparent renewal of ‘penal optimism’ in historical context by drawing on American evangelical Protestant traditions and examining how these affect contemporary perceptions of the redeemability of criminal offenders. One aim is to acquaint criminologists with the discourse of evangelical Protestantism, a significant and driving force in contemporary penal reform efforts – particularly in the realm of prisoner reentry – by outlining key religious concepts and their implications for penal discourse and policy.

Keywords

penal policy politics punishment reentry religion

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Allen

(1964) The Borderland of Criminal Justice, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Applegate

Cullen

Fisher

Van der Ven

(2000) Forgiveness and fundamentalism: Reconsidering the relationship between correctional attitudes and religion. Criminology, 38(3): 719–753.

Barbour H (2012) Why I released 26 prisoners. Washington Post. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/haley-barbour-on-his-pardons-of-mississippi-prisoners/2012/01/17/gIQAtOuG9P_story.html.

Bellah

(1967) Civil religion in America. Dædalus, 96(1): 1–21.

Brown EK (2012) Foreclosing on incarceration? State correctional policy enactments and the Great Recession. Criminal Justice Policy Review. Epub ahead of print 8 February 8 2012. DOI: 10.1177/0887403411434547.

Bush GW (2001) Rallying the armies of compassion. Available at: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/reports/faithbased.html.

Bush GW (2008) Remarks on signing the Second Chance Act of 2007. US Government Printing Office. Available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2889/is_14_44/ai_n25401702/.

Calvin

(1958) Chapter III: Jesus Christ. In: Haroutunian

(ed.) Calvin: Commentaries, Westminster: John Knox Press, pp. 142–191.

Colson

(1976) Born Again, Grand Rapids, MI: Spire.

10.

Colson

(1979) Life Sentence, Grand Rapids, MI: Spire.

11.

Council of State Governments Justice Center (2012) The Second Chance Act fact sheet. Available at: http://www.reentrypolicy.org/government_affairs/second_chance_act.

12.

Dumm

(1987) Democracy and Punishment: Disciplinary Origins of the United States, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

13.

Erikson

(1966) Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance, London: John Wiley & Sons.

14.

Gallup (2011) Unemployment solidifies position as most important problem. Available at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/146081/Unemployment-Solidifies-Position-Important-Problem.aspx.

15.

Garland

(2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

16.

Gerson

Wehner

(2013) City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era, Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.

17.

Gorringe

(1996) God’s Just Vengeance: Crime, Violence and the Rhetoric of Salvation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

18.

Gottschalk

(2011) The past, present, and future of mass incarceration in the United States. Criminology & Public Policy, 10(3): 483–504.

19.

Greenberg

(1977) The correctional effects of corrections. In: Greenberg

(eds) Corrections and Punishment, Los Angeles CA: SAGE, pp. 111–148.

20.

Greenwald

(2007) A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, New York: Three Rivers Press.

21.

Lewis

(1949/1987) The humanitarian theory of justice. AMCAP Journal, 13(1): 147–153.

22.

Lindsay

(2007) Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, New York: Oxford University Press.

23.

Lindsey

(1970) The Late Great Planet Earth, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

24.

Marsden

(2001) Religion and American Culture, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson.

25.

Martinson

(1974) What works? Questions and answers about prison reform. Public Interest, 35: 22–54.

26.

Meacham J (2012) Heaven can’t wait. TIME. Available at: http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,2111227,00.html.

27.

Melossi

(2001) The cultural embeddedness of social control: Reflections on a comparison of Italian and North American cultures concerning punishment. Theoretical Criminology, 5(4): 403–424.

28.

Merton

(1948) The self-fulfilling prophecy. Antioch Review, 8(2): 193–210.

29.

Miller RJ (2013) Halfway Home: Race, Ritual and the Micropolitics of Prisoner Reentry.PhD Dissertation, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL.

30.

Moore

(1995) Learning by doing: Linking knowledge to policy in the development of community policing and violence prevention in the United States. In: Clarke

McCord

(eds) Integrating Crime Prevention Strategies: Propensity and Opportunity, Stockholm: National Council for Crime Prevention, pp. 301–331.

31.

Morone

(2003) Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

32.

Nelson

Turetsky

(2008) Legislation in Brief: Second Chance Act of 2007: Community Safety through Recidivism Prevention, Pub. Law No. 110–199, Washington: Center for Law and Social Policy.

33.

New York Times (2006) The right has a jailhouse conversion. New York Times, 24 December. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24GOP.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (accessed 29 January 2013).

34.

New York Times (2011) Faith was on the Governor's shoulder. New York Times, 26 March. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/us/26religion.html?_r=0.

35.

Nolan

(2004) When Prisoners Return: Why We Should Care and How You and Your Church Can Help, Merrifield, VA: Prison Fellowship.

36.

Pew Center on the States (2010a) Prison count 2010: Errata. Available at: http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org.

37.

Pew Center on the States (2010b) Prison count 2010: State population declines for the first time in 38 years. Available at: http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org.

38.

Poole

(2009) Satan in America: The Devil We Know, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

39.

Roberts

Stalans

Indermaur

Hough

(2003) Penal Populism and Public Opinion: Lessons from Five Countries, New York: Oxford University Press.

40.

Rothman

(1980) Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and Its Alternatives in Progressive America, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.

41.

Savelsberg

(1994) Knowledge, domination, and criminal punishment. American Journal of Sociology, 99(4): 911–943.

42.

Shuck

(2011) Christian dispensationalism. In: Wessinger

(ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 515–528.

43.

Simon

(2007) Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear, New York: Oxford University Press.

44.

Skotnicki

(2000) Religion and the Development of the American Penal System, Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

45.

Sullivan

(2009) Prison Religion: Faith-Based Reform and the Constitution, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

46.

Swidler

(1986) Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review, 51(2): 273–286.

47.

Tonry

(2004) Thinking about Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture, New York: Oxford University Press.

48.

Tonry

(2011a) Making peace, not a desert: Penal reform should be about values not justice reinvestment. Criminology & Public Policy, 10(3): 637–649.

49.

Tonry

(2011b) Punishing Race: A Continuing American Dilemma, New York: Oxford University Press.

50.

Tonry

Green

(2003) Criminology and public policy in the USA and UK. In: Zedner

Ashworth

(eds) The Criminological Foundations of Penal Policy: Essays in Honour of Roger Hood, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 485–525.

51.

US Senate Joint Economic Committee (2007) Hearing. Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost? Hearing, 4 October, Washington: Government Printing Office.

52.

View from the Right (2009) Huckabee said his belief in redemption was reason for letting so many violent criminals out of prison. Available at: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/014934.html.

53.

Weber

(1905/2002) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Trans, Kalberg S. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury.

54.

Welch

(2011) Corrections: A Critical Approach, New York: Routledge.

55.

Wessinger

(2011) Millennialism in cross-cultural prespective. In: Wessinger

(ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3–24.

56.

Whitman

(2003) Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide between America and Europe, New York: Oxford University Press.

57.

Williams

(1900) The Life and Work of Dwight L. Moody: The Great Evangelist of the XIXth Century, Philadelphia, PA: PW Ziegler.

58.

Wilson

DiIulio

Bose

(2011) American Government: Institutions and Policies, Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

59.

Wuthnow

(1988) The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.