Abstract
Through most of the first three-quarters of this century, the situation in American prisons was remarkably stable. Prison populations were sufficiently stable so that they stimulated a theory of the stability of prison populations (Blumstein and Cohen, 1973), published in 1973. Almost as if by spite, prison populations in 1973 began an astonishing steady climb, from a prison population of under 100,000 in 1969 to almost 600,000 in 1987. In this chapter, I would like to explore some of the factors that contributed to that climb, some prospects for the future, and some policy implications of those trends.
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References
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© 1989 Plenum Press, New York
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Blumstein, A. (1989). American Prisons in a Time of Crisis. In: Goodstein, L., MacKenzie, D.L. (eds) The American Prison. Law, Society and Policy, vol 4. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-5652-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-5652-3_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-5654-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-5652-3
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