Making Crime Pay STUDIES IN CRIME AND PUBLIC POLICY Michael Tonry and Norval Morris, General Editors Police for the Future David H. Bayley Incapacitation: Penal Confinement and the Restraint of Crime Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins The American Street Gang: Its Nature, Prevalence, and Control Malcolm W. Klein Sentencing Matters Michael Tonry The Habits of Legality: Criminal Justice and the Rule of Law Francis A.

Allen Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise, and Ethnicity Ko-lin Chin Responding to Troubled Youth Cheryl L. Maxson and Malcolm W. Klein Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics Katherine Beckett Community Policing, Chicago Style Wesley G. Skogan and Susan M.

Hartnett Crime Is Not the Problem: Lethal Violence in America Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter Politics, Punishment, and Populism Lord Windlesham American Youth Violence Franklin E. Zimring Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court Barry C.

Feld Making Crime Pay Law and Order In Contemporary American Politics KATHERINE BECKETT Oxford University Press New York Oxford Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1997 by Oxford University Press, Inc. First published in 1997 by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2000 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beckett, Katherine, 1964- Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics / Katherine Beckett. — (Studies in crime and public policy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-511289-X; ISBN 0-19-513626-8(Pbk. Crime—Political aspects—United States.

Criminal justice, Administration of—Political aspects—United States. Crime prevention—Political aspects—United States. Narcotics, Control of—Political aspects—United States. United States—Politics and government—1989- I.973—dc20 96-31521 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Acknowledgments am privileged to have benefited from the insight and support of I many mentors, colleagues, and friends throughout the course of this project.

The analysis presented in chapter 2 would not have been pos- sible without the assistance of Bruce Western; his knowledge, gener- osity, and commitment to collegiality are inspirational to me. Ivan Szelenyi's interest in power and the production of knowledge shaped the development of this book's epistemological framework, and his willingness to invest time and energy in it was invaluable. Craig Reinarman's insight regarding the political and cultural aspects of the drug issue and his insistence that I conceive of my dissertation as a book-in-progress were tremendously helpful. I was also fortunate to have access to Bill Roy's expertise in political and historical sociology; his enthusiasm and empathy were a crucial source of support through- out my graduate career.

Frank Gilliam made an important contribu- tion by helping to clarify the ways in which contemporary electoral dynamics and the racialization of American politics inform the politici- zation of crime-related issues. Theodore Sasson has been a wonderful source of ideas and construc- tive criticism; his willingness to wade through the various incarnations of this project and his unflagging enthusiasm for it are much appreci- ated. Steve Sherwood provided many opportunities for me to clarify and develop my ideas; even when disagreeing, he was encouraging. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Joachim Savelsberg identified important conceptual issues and asked thought-provoking questions along the way.

Thanks to Joe Nevins for suggesting the title and for supporting this project since its inception. I am also indebted to the editors of this series—Norval Morris and Michael Tonry—for their interest and feedback and to several addi- tional anonymous reviewers of the manuscript. Steve Herbert has been a continual source of advice, ideas, and criti- cism; I am fortunate to have him as an intellectual and life partner. Finally, I would like to thank my mother: through her example of com- passion and conviction, Joyce Beckett inspired the faith in the possi- bility of redemption upon which this book rests.

Contents I Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics 3 1 Setting the Public Agenda 14 3 Creating the Crime Issue 28 4 From Crime to Drugs—and Back Again 44 5 Crime and Drugs in the News 62 6 Crime and Punishment in American Political Culture 79 J Institutionalizing Law and Order 89 8 Reconceptualizing the Crime Problem 105 Notes 111 Bibliography 137 Index 155 This page intentionally left blank Making Crime Pay This page intentionally left blank I Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics c rime and punishment sit center stage in the theater of American political discourse. For much of the past three decades, politi- cians have made crime-related problems central campaign issues and struggled to identify themselves as tougher than their competitors on crime, delinquency, and drug use. Popular concern about these social problems has reached record levels during this period1 and public opinion polls indicate that members of the public have become more likely to support punitive policies such as the death penalty and "three- strike" sentencing laws.2 Not surprisingly, these ideological shifts have been accompanied by a dramatic expansion of the criminal justice system. Between 1965 and 1993, crime control expenditures jumped from $4.6 billion to $100 billion (and from .57% of the gross do- mestic product) and the rate of incarceration in the United States is now the highest in the industrialized world.3 Minorities have been especially affected by these developments: blacks now comprise over half of all prison inmates in the United States, up from one-third just twenty years ago.4 How did we get here? Why have crime-related problems assumed such prominence in recent decades, and what accounts for the insis- tence that harsher punishments and tougher law enforcement are the best response to these complex social problems? Despite its impor- tance, this question has not been addressed as systematically as one 3 4 MAKING CRIME PAY might expect.

To the extent that it has been, most analysts have offered a fairly simple explanation: concern about crime and punitive attitudes are widespread because the crime and drug problems have gotten worse. According to this "democracy-at-work" thesis,5 the increased incidence of criminal behavior has led Americans to demand that their political representatives crack down on criminals; the more frequent use of the death penalty and the adoption of tough three strikes sen- tencing laws are politicians' responses to this popular sentiment. In sum, this thesis suggests that the current approach to crime control reflects the worsening of the crime problem and the public sentiment to which this trend naturally gives rise. Although intuitively appealing, this explanation does not withstand closer examination.

Proponents of the democracy-at-work thesis typi- cally point to official crime statistics which indicate that the rate of crime increased throughout the 1960s and 1970s. But as we will see in the following chapter, levels of public concern about crime and drug use are not consistently associated with the reported incidence of these social problems. Furthermore, the assumption that anxiety about crime drives support for punitive anticrime policies is problematic. In fact, those who are less afraid of crime typically express the highest levels of support for the "get-tough" approach while those who are more fearful are often less punitive.

Rural white men, for example, feel rela- tively safe but are quite staunch supporters of law and order policies. Conversely, women and blacks are, in general, more concerned about their potential victimization but less supportive of tough crime control measures.6 The relationship between perceptions of the crime prob- lem and attitudes toward punishment is thus more complicated than the democracy-at-work thesis implies. Public support for punitive anticrime policies is also more fluid and ambivalent than is commonly supposed. Enthusiasm for the death penalty, for example, is historically variable, weakens considerably in the presence of alternatives, and coexists with widespread support for rehabilitative ideals.

When given a choice, most Americans still believe that spending money on educational and job training programs is a more effective crime-fighting measure than building prisons.7 While the punitive tone of the law and order discourse clearly resonates with salient sentiments in American political culture, popular beliefs about crime and punishment are complex, equivocal, and contradictory, even after decades of political initiative on these subjects.8 The notion that the desire for punishment is ubiquitous and unequivocal ignores the complexity of cultural attitudes and the situational and political fac- tors that shape their expression.9 LAW AND ORDER IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POLITICS 5 In sum, support for punitive anticrime measures has waxed and waned throughout American history, coexists with support for less punitive policies, and is only loosely related to the reported incidence of crime-related problems. By positing a direct connection between the incidence of these problems and public punitiveness, the democracy- at-work thesis assumes what requires explanation: the rise of the con- ception of crime as the consequence of insufficient punishment and control. This book takes this ideological accomplishment as its object of inquiry and tells a very different story about the ascendance of the get-tough approach to crime. Culture, Politics, and the Construction of Social Problems Sociologist Max Weber used the term "vielseitigkeit" to refer to the multiplicity of meanings inherent in the social world, a phenomenon he called the "many-sidedness of reality."10 Others make a similar point when they stress the promiscuous nature of the "ideological sign": because social objects and issues are "multi-accentual" they can acquire a number of different meanings, each of which may have quite distinct political implications.11 The "crime problem," for example, may be depicted in a variety of ways: as evidence of the breakdown of law and order, the demise of the family, or socioeconomic inequality and the need for policies that reduce it.

While the harm victims of crime suffer is very real, our understanding of the meaning and causes of this harm depends upon the way in which the crime issue is appre- hended in political discourse.12 As David Garland concludes, "[lit is clear enough that criminal conduct does not determine the kind of penal action that a society adopts. [I]t is not 'crime' or even crimi- nological knowledge about crime which most affects policy decisions, but rather the ways in which 'the crime problem' is officially perceived and the political positions to which these perceptions give rise."13 Crime-related issues, then, are socially and politically constructed; they acquire their meaning through interpretive, representational, and political processes. Social actors—sometimes called "claimsmakers"14 —struggle to gain acceptance for preferred ways of framing these issues and vie for limited access to public venues in order to promote them.15 In these battles over the signification of crime-related prob- lems, claimsmakers "deploy mediated symbols and mobilize power- ful cultural references."16 The Bush campaign's manipulation of the "Willie Horton" incident, for example, can be understood as an at- tempt to invoke the image of "the black rapist" (with all its historical 6 MAKING CRIME PAY and cultural significance) in order to generate support for law and order policies—and for the candidate who was, presumably, more capable of implementing them. Such efforts to signify social problems are typically components of larger political battles.

Participants in these broader struggles use a variety of rhetorical devices and cultural images to link ostensibly unrelated social issues in ideologically useful ways. Southern politi- cians and law enforcement officials who called civil rights protestors "thugs" and decried "crime in the streets," for example, were attempt- ing to define protest activities as "criminal" rather than political in nature. Claimsmakers may also define social problems in ways that direct attention away from inconvenient social conditions.