Chapter 3 - Neoliberalism, Prisons and Probation in the United States and England and Wales

Summary

Introduction

Neoliberalism entails social injustice and thus undermines liberal approaches to criminal justice.

(Reiner, quoted in Bell 2011, x)

Recourse to the prison apparatus in advanced societies is not destiny but a matter of political choices…

(Wacquant 2001, 410–11)

The correctional populations of the United States and England and Wales have undergone substantial and relentless expansion over the last forty years. Throughout this period, these countries have also experienced neoliberal governments. This chapter aims to analyse the impact of those governments upon the criminal and community justice systems of the United States and of England and Wales, with a particular focus on prisons, probation and privatisation, and to consider whether neoliberalism has indeed undermined liberal and rehabilitative approaches (Reiner 2007 and 2011). It will consider whether neoliberalism, arguably “the defining political economic paradigm of our times’ (McChesney 1998, 7) but also a cultural system, has become institutionalised and embedded within the penal systems of those countries. Evidence will be assessed to consider the shift by neoliberal governments towards punitive penal and correctional interventions. In particular, this chapter will explore the way in which neoliberalism has prioritised punitiveness, de-prioritised rehabilitation, fostered a growing incarcerated population and engaged in the pursuit of private profit at the expense of social justice within the carceral and probation systems. The phenomenon of private prisons in the United Kingdom and America will also be considered alongside the concept of the prison–industrial complex (prisons integrated into the circuits of capitalist production).