tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post1121049074671618133..comments2024-03-27T13:13:25.164-04:00Comments on johnshaplin: The Politics of Backlash by William J. Stuntzjohnshaplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-69550442002379369172012-05-16T13:59:15.517-04:002012-05-16T13:59:15.517-04:00The decline of local democratic control over crimi...The decline of local democratic control over criminal justice did not inevitably produce more punishment, nor did it inevitably produce less. As in the early twentieth-century South, it produced both: first much less punishment, then vastly more. The crucial regulating mechanisms that governed northern cities’ justice systems in the Gilded Age – frequent jury trials, prosecutors elected by voters in poor and working-class neighborhoods (because more upscale city neighborhoods and suburbs were more thinly populated than today), and police forces ruled by urban machines that depended on working-class immigrant votes for their survival – faded. Bureaucratic detachment, legal procedure, and symbolic politics took their place. The consequences were poor crime control, rapidly changing punishment practices, and massive inequality.johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.com