Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:26:13.653Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prisons as Self-Regulating Systems: A Comparison of Historical Patterns in California for Male and Female Offenders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Richard A. Berk ,
Sheldon L. Messinger ,
David Rauma  and
John E. Berecochea
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Building on our earlier work testing the stability of punishment hypothesis, we here combine the general modeling strategy previously employed with more behaviorally grounded models of actors' expectations and preferences. Using these tools, we model the historical attempts by criminal justice actors in California to balance prison admissions and releases in an equilibrating manner. We find that there have been efforts to regulate the flow of individuals through prison and that, contrary to expectations, these processes are not very different for males and females.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , 1983 , pp. 547 - 586
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1981 Annual Meetings of the American Society of Criminology. Data collection for this paper was supported by the National Institute of Justice (Grant No. 78-NI-AX-0093) and the data analysis by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. SES81-10251). We are deeply indebted to Marie Vida Ryan and Dona Good of the California Department of Corrections for making available, and helping us interpret, many of the data on the prison population. Finally, Ann D. Witte, Karl E. Schuessler, and Daniel L. Rubinfeld provided useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

References

BERECOCHEA, John E. (1982) “Origins and Early Development of Parole in California.” Ph.D. Dissertation, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
BERK, Richard A., Harold, BRACKMAN and Selma, LESSER (1977) A Measure of Justice: An Empirical Study of Changes in the California Penal Code, 1955-1971. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
BERK, Richard A., David, RAUMA, Sheldon L., MESSINGER and Thomas F., COOLEY (1981) “A Test of the Stability of Punishment Hypothesis: The Case of California, 1851-1970,” 46 American Sociological Review 805.Google Scholar
BERK, Richard A., David, RAUMA and Sheldon L., MESSINGER (1982) “A Further Test of the Stability of Punishment Hypothesis,” in Hagan, J. (ed.), Methodological Innovations in the Study of Crime and Punishment. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
BIENNIAL REPORT OF BOARD OF PRISON DIRECTORS OF CALIFORNIA STATE PRISONS, COMMENCING JULY 1, 1873 AND ENDING JUNE 30, 1875 (1875). Sacramento: G. H. Springer, State Printer.Google Scholar
BLUMBERG, Abraham S. (1967) Criminal Justice. Chicago: Quadrangle Books.Google Scholar
BLUMSTEIN, Alfred and Jacqueline, COHEN (1973) “A Theory of the Stability of Punishment,” 64 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 198.Google Scholar
BLUMSTEIN, Alfred, Jacqueline, COHEN and Daniel, NAGIN (1977) “The Dynamics of a Homeostatic Punishment Process,” 67 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 317.Google Scholar
BLUMSTEIN, Alfred, Jacqueline, COHEN and Harold D., MILLER (1980) “Demographically Disaggregated Projections of Prison Populations,” 8 Journal of Criminal Justice 1.Google Scholar
BLUMSTEIN, Alfred and Soumyo, MOITRA (1979). “An Analysis of the Time Series of the Imprisonment Rate in the States of the United States: A Further Test of the Stability of Punishment Hypothesis,” 70 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 376.Google Scholar
BOX, George E.P. and Gwilym M., JENKINS (1976) Time Series Analysis: Forecasting and Control. San Francisco: Holden-Day.Google Scholar
CAHALAN, Margaret (1979) “Trends in Incarceration in the United States Since 1880,” 25 Crime and Delinquency 9.Google Scholar
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS (1980) California Prisoners. Sacramento, California.Google Scholar
COHEN, Lawrence E. and Marcus, FELSON (1979) “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach,” 44 American Sociological Review 588.Google Scholar
COHEN, Lawrence E., Marcus, FELSON and Kenneth C., LAND (1980) “Property Crime Rates in the United States: A Macrodynamic Analysis, 1947-1977; with Ex Ante Forecasts for the Mid-1980's,” 86 American Journal of Sociology 90.Google Scholar
CONRAD, John P. (1965) Crime and Its Correction: An International Survey of Attitudes and Practices. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DURKHEIM, Emile (1966/1895) The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
GREENBERG, David F. (1977) “The Dynamics of Oscillatory Punishment Processes,” 68 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 643.Google Scholar
GREENBERG, David F. (1980) “Penal Sanctions in Poland: A Test of Alternative Models,” 28 Social Problems 194.Google Scholar
HARVEY, Andrew C. (1981) The Econometric Analysis of Time Series. New York: Halsted Press.Google Scholar
HENDRY, David F. and Grayham E., MIZON (1978) “Serial Correlation as a Convenient Simplification, Not a Nuisance: A Comment on the Study of Demand for Money by the Bank of England,” 88 The Economic Journal 549.Google Scholar
JOHNSTON, John (1972) Econometric Methods, 2nd Ed. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
JONES, Ann (1980) Women Who Kill. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
JORESKOG, Karl G. and Dag, SORBOM (1979) Advances in Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Models. Cambridge: Abt Books.Google Scholar
JUDGE, George G., William E., GRIFFITHS, R. Carter, HILL and Tsoung-Chao, LEE (1980) The Theory and Practice of Econometrics. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
LAMOTT, Kenneth C. (1961) Chronicles of San Quentin: The Biography of a Prison. New York: David McKay.Google Scholar
LAND, Kenneth C. (1980) “Modeling Macro Social Change,” in Schuessler, K. (ed.), Sociological Methodology, 1980. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
LAND, Kenneth C. and Marcus, FELSON (1976) “A General Framework for Building Dynamic Macro Social Indicator Models: Including an Analysis of Changes in Crime Rates and Police Expenditures,” 82 American Journal of Sociology 565.Google Scholar
LAWSON, Tony (1981) “Keynesian Model Building and the Rational Expectations Critique,” 5 Cambridge Journal of Economics 311.Google Scholar
LEIBENSTEIN, Harvey (1976) Beyond Economic Man: A New Foundation for Microeconomics. Cambridge MA.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
LUCAS, Robert E. Jr. (1975) “An Equilibrium Model of the Business Cycle,” 83 Journal of Political Economy 1113.Google Scholar
MADDOCK, Rodney and Michael, CARTER (1982) “A Child's Guide to Rational Expectations,” 20 Journal of Economic Literature 39.Google Scholar
MCCARTHY, Belinda Rogers (1979) Easy Time. Lexington: D. C. Heath.Google Scholar
MESSINGER, Sheldon L. (1969) “Strategies of Control.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
MESSINGER, Sheldon L. and Phillip E., JOHNSON (1978) “California's Definite Sentence Statute: History and Issues,” in Proceedings of Conference on Determinate Sentencing. NILECJ/LEAA.Google Scholar
MILLER, Dan (1980) “Alternatives to Incarceration: From Total Institutions to Total Systems.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
MUTH, John F. (1961) “Rational Expectations and the Theory of Price Movements,” 29 Econometrica 315.Google Scholar
NAGEL, Ilene H. and John, HAGAN (1982) “Gender and Crime: Offense Patterns and Criminal Court Sanctions,” in Morris, N. and Tonry, M. (eds.), Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research, Vol. IV. Chicago: Universitv of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
NERLOVE, Marc, David M., GRETHER and Jose L., CARVALHO (1979) Analysis of Economic Time Series: A Synthesis. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
RAUMA, David (1981) “Crime and Punishment Reconsidered: Some Comments on Blumstein's Stability of Punishment Hypothesis,” 72 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 1772.Google Scholar
REPORT OF THE LESSEE OF STATE PRISONS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA (1855) Assembly Reports, Session of 1855, Doc. No. 12 (February 14). Sacramento: B. B. Redding, State Printer.Google Scholar
ROTHMAN, David J. (1980) Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and its Alternatives in Progressive America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
SHERMAN, Michael E. and Gordon, HAWKINS (1981) Imprisonment in America: Choosing the Future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
SHILLER, Robert J. (1978) “Rational Expectations and the Dynamic Structure of Macroeconomic Models,” 4 Journal of Monetary Economics 1.Google Scholar
THEIL, Henri (1978) Introduction to Econometrics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
von HIRSCH, Andrew (1982) “Constructing Guidelines for Sentencing: The Critical Choices for the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission,” 5 Hamline Law Review 164.Google Scholar
von HIRSCH, Andrew and Kathleen J., HANRAHAN (1979) The Question of Parole: Retention, Reform or Abolition? Cambridge MA.: Ballinger Publishing Co.Google Scholar
WALLER, Irvin and Janet, CHAN (1974) “Prison Use: A Canadian and International Comparison,” 17 Canadian Law Quarterly 47.Google Scholar
WILLES, Mark H. (1981) “‘Rational Expectations’ as a Counterrevolution,” in Bell, D. and Kristol, I. (eds.), The Crisis in Economic Theory. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
YALEY, Barbara J. (1980) “Habits of Industry: Labor and Penal Policy in California, 1849-1940.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz.Google Scholar