How is the improvement of criminal justice efficiency related to the increase in prison populations?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

In 1960, state criminal justice agencies were inefficient offices run in highly personal ways by highly independent officials. By the 1980s, these same agencies had become modernized bureaucracies that could respond faster to public demand and political pressures. At the same time, the mission of criminal justice agencies was shifting from changing offenders into law-abiding citizens to controlling what was increasingly believed to be a permanent criminal class. Efficient, modern agencies could respond quickly to the public demand to control crime by locking up criminals.

All criminal justice agencies—police, prosecution, defense lawyers, courts, and corrections—formed a rapid response team to satisfy public demand and political pressure for more incarceration. Police could make more arrests and make them stick because they were more efficient and knew the law better than they did in 1960 . The members of the courtroom work group were more efficient too and could process greater numbers of defendants into offenders. Furthermore, judges could no longer use their discretionary sentencing power to put the brakes on the new efficiency in locking up more people. Just the opposite was true: Mandatory sentencing laws and sentencing guidelines had put the brakes on judges by restricting their discretion to sentence.