Abstract
The political process entailed in the passage of federal crime legislation in 1994 and the revisions of it being considered in 1995 are analyzed as a manifestation of three central themes about American politics articulated by Alexis de Tocqueville inDemocracy in America published in 1835. It is argued that “crackdown” measures of dubious value in fighting crime are the result of majoritarianism, a national consensus favoring very conservative crime policies. A second factor at work is pluralism, the strong role played by interest groups in American politics. Thirdly, the racial politics which De Tocqueville thought were destined to plague the United States indefinitely are shown to form a backdrop to the formulation of crime control measures. The article concludes with a discussion of a strategy for the development of more enlightened crime policies in the face of stark realities about the nature of the policy-making process.
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A version of this article was delivered at the 1994 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Miami, Florida, November 9–12, 1994.
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Levine, J.P. Federal crime legislation through the eyes of Alexis de Tocquiville. Crime Law Soc Change 23, 175–189 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01301635
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01301635