"Why Mass IncarcerationIs Uniquely American"

The title of this post is the title of this "ahead of print" article forthcoming in the journal Crime and Justice authored by Michael Tonry.  Here is its abstract:

Mass incarceration, among Western countries a uniquely American phenomenon, resulted from a transformation of American criminal justice systems.  Indeterminate sentencing systems in which legislatures established maximumsentences, prosecutors processed cases, judges decided who went to prison, and parole boards decided how long people stayed there were replaced by determinate systems in which legislatures prescribed minimum sentences, prosecutors made the key charging and sentencing decisions, judges processed cases and sentenced minor crimes, and parole boards lost much of their authority.  Parole boards and judges become largely irrelevant wheneverprosecutors file charges subject to mandatory sentence, three-strikes, truth-in-sentencing, and life without parole laws.  The explanation for the changes andmass incarceration is that developments beginning in the 1960s — White re-sentment of the civil rights movement, rising crime rates, and politicization ofthe criminal law — interacted with long-term characteristics of American historyand culture.  Four are fundamental: chronic, centuries-old racial conflict and threeinheritances from America’s frontier history (election of local prosecutors, moraljudgmentalism associated with fundamentalist Protestantism, and widespread fatalism about and indifference to human suffering).