This article reviews evidence for the effects of public opinion on court decision-making,
capital punishment policy and use, correctional expenditures, and incarceration rates. It also …

Mass incarceration is an unprecedented development, one with myriad adverse
consequences. Although the expansion of US penal institutions is largely a function of …

Scholarship on the expansion of the US carceral state has primarily focused on
imprisonment rates. Yet the majority of adults under formal criminal justice control are on …

Criminology: Explaining Crime and Its Context, Ninth Edition, is a highly acclaimed textbook
offering a broad perspective on criminological theory. It provides students of criminology and …

Blacks and Hispanics convicted of felonies are more likely than whites to receive prison
sentences for their crimes, and they receive slightly longer sentences if imprisoned. Yet the …

Threat theory argues that states toughen criminal laws to repress the competitive power of
large minority groups. Yet, research on threat suffers from a poor understanding of why …

After decades of steady expansion, state prison populations declined in recent years for the
first time since 1972. Though the size of the decrease was small, it masks substantial state …

America is in the midst of an extraordinary public debate about police policy.“Conflicted
conservatives,” who are symbolically conservative but operationally liberal, may have a …

The United States' high incarceration rate gets a lot of attention from scholars, policy makers,
and the public. Yet, writes Michelle Phelps, the most common form of criminal justice …

Group threat theory has stimulated an impressive number of studies over the course of the
past several decades. Our review takes stock of this literature, focusing on core issues of …