| Popis: |
Ireland enjoys a level of imprisonment around half that of England and Wales and one-eighth that of the USA. However, this is not the result of structured policy choices. Several factors generally associated with penal severity are evident in that crime is (episodically) salient and lethal violence has risen, there is low trust in government, little evidence of deference to experts, and the principles of justice are seldom articulated. Countervailing forces are that the system remains highly discretionary, punishments are individualized, and key criminal justice personnel are unelected and thereby insulated from public sentiment. To add depth to this analysis of penal culture requires the addition of local factors, including a history of coercive confinement, the lack of an infrastructure for following through on political commitments, profound inertia, imitation (in legislative and policy terms), migration patterns, attitudes to state expenditure, and a clientelist political system. |
