Crime and Punishment: An Expressive Voting View

Incarceration rates in many countries (the US and Australia among them) have risen spectacularly over the last twenty years and are only partially explicable by increases in crime rates. Moreover, in some countries where crime rates have shown a comparable time-path, incarceration rates have not shown the same spectacular increase. The aim of this paper is to explore the politics of punishment. The claim is that the US and Australian experiences are best understood in terms of political considerations; and that this fact lends some support to the "expressive" as distinct from the "interest" approach to electoral behaviour.