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Rapid Diffusion and Policy Reform: The Adoption and Modification of Three Strikes Laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Andrew Karch  and
Matthew Cravens
Andrew Karch*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Matthew Cravens
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
*
Andrew Karch, University of Minnesota, 1414 Social Sciences Building, 267 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. Email: ajkarch@umn.edu
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Abstract

Despite many important recent advances in the study of policy diffusion, this research has devoted limited attention to what happens after the adoption decision. This article attempts to fill this gap in diffusion research by examining the adoption and subsequent modification of “Three Strikes and You're Out” laws in the American states. Its analysis suggests that distinct political forces affected state-level outcomes at these two stages of the policymaking process. The rapid spread of Three Strikes laws in the 1990s seems to have occurred because states with more conservative leanings and higher proportions of African-American residents gravitated to a salient and visible policy. In contrast, the modification of Three Strikes laws appears to have been encouraged by financial necessity and shifting ideological environments but hindered by the mobilization of stakeholders with an interest in preserving the status quo, including private prison operators and prison officer unions. The contrast illustrates the usefulness of treating policy diffusion as a multistage process, and the stakeholder mobilization results provide empirical support for recent theorizing about policy feedback effects.

Keywords

policy innovation/diffusionpublic policycrime policypolicy implementationpolicy processprivatizationracial policy
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 461 - 491
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014

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