tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/zero-tolerance-26565/articleszero tolerance – The Conversation2019-03-22T14:37:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1136932019-03-22T14:37:07Z2019-03-22T14:37:07ZInvisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men – a review<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265103/original/file-20190321-93060-132wzhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Male bias pervades all areas of modern life and puts women at a serious disadvantage.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/business-people-man-riding-on-woman-534338803">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Feminist campaigner <a href="https://www.carolinecriadoperez.com/">Caroline Criado Perez’s</a> latest book is an essential if enraging read. It might seem ironic that the central figure in <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1113605/invisible-women/9781784741723.html">Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men</a> is a man, but Perez argues convincingly that the “default male” is the figure our world is designed around.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the default male is also a stand-in for “human”, with consequences for women that range from the annoying (longer loo queues, phones that don’t fit our hands) to potentially lethal (protective clothing that fails to protect, misdiagnosis of heart attacks). </p>
<p>Perez’s analysis is wide-ranging and compelling, and no matter how familiar you think you are with the distorting effects of default male thinking, there will be examples in here that enrage you anew.</p>
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<p>Did you know (I didn’t), that worldwide, indoor air pollution is the <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health">single largest environmental risk factor</a> for female mortality and the leading killer of children under the age of five? And that toxic fumes from stoves are one of the main contributors? As women typically take on the bulk of domestic work and child care, this means gender roles are literally killing them. The beauty of the book is that it makes you wonder how it is possible that you didn’t know this. </p>
<h2>The power of information</h2>
<p>This is a book about how knowledge is created, shared and reproduced, challenging readers to think about the limits of our own, and seek out new ways of knowing. It should perhaps come as no surprise that Perez’s own authority is continually under attack from blokes who’ve done a quick Google search to trump her years of <a href="https://twitter.com/CCriadoPerez/status/1099320288943194114">research</a>. <a href="https://safiyaunoble.com/%22%22">Safiya Umoja Noble’s</a> work on algorithms of oppression could have alerted them to the folly of using Google as the authority on these things. </p>
<p>Perez’s experiences as a feminist in the public eye point to the double-edged nature of visibility for women: this is the woman who received death and rape threats for <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23485610">suggesting</a> the Bank of England should have a woman on a banknote.</p>
<p>At one level, it is encouraging that the costs of visibility for women in public life are themselves increasingly visible, as in Amnesty’s recent <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/03/online-violence-against-women-chapter-1/">research</a> on the toxicity of Twitter. But it is hard to be encouraged when the abuse continues.</p>
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<p>The default male pollutes the very language we use to talk about these things. Feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/opinion/me-too-weinstein-one-year.html">made this point</a> brilliantly in the New York Times. She declared that the #MeToo campaign had done what the law could not: sexually assaulted women who had once been disbelieved and denigrated were being believed and valued. But MacKinnon noted too that the courts are “hidebound and less nimble than culture”, and there is still a long way to go:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Legal standards for retaliation – one of the biggest fears behind non-reporting – need to change to protect [women reporting crimes]. Culturally, it is still said “women allege” or “claim” they were sexually assaulted. Those accused “deny what was alleged”. What if we changed the emphasis and said that survivors “report” and the accused “alleges” or “claims” it didn’t happen? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>MacKinnon’s point is that the very way we talk about these things is skewed – privileging the male accused while framing women’s reports as suspect. Her suggested change in emphasis still makes it clear that these reports are contested, but it no longer privileges the male point of view. </p>
<p>Writing about men’s violence against women is particularly pernicious in this respect. For instance, in the UK recently, <a href="https://act.welevelup.org/campaigns/dignity-dead-women">Level Up</a> – an organisation that campaigns to end sexism against women – successfully lobbied the <a href="https://www.ipso.co.uk/what-we-do/">Independent Press Standards Organisation</a> to launch guidelines on the reporting of domestic homicide to avoid the hideous clichés which typically pepper reports of men who murder the women they are in relationships with.</p>
<p>We are all familiar with it: the “kind” men who just “snapped” in the face of some perceived infraction, whose histories of domestic abuse are <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6769401/Jealous-husband-jumped-death-cliff-proposed-wife.html?ito=amp_twitter_share-top">mentioned only in passing</a>. As feminist organisations including <a href="https://www.zerotolerance.org.uk/work-awards/">Zero Tolerance</a> forcefully argue, journalists can and should do better.</p>
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<h2>Becoming conscious</h2>
<p>But one of the most powerful takeaways from Perez’s book is the extent to which so much of this bias is unconscious, such that we are all infected by it. Feminism is the process of unlearning this, but it’s an ongoing process, for all of us.</p>
<p>So while I learned a huge amount from Perez’s book, I also winced when I read that urban planning “fails to account for women’s risk of being sexually assaulted”. I heard within this echoes of a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/the-psychology-of-victim-blaming/502661/">victim-blaming</a> narrative which asks what we should do to avoid being sexually assaulted, rather than what men should do to avoid sexually assaulting others. </p>
<p>At the same time, the book itself is built on a wealth of only partially visible gendered labour. Perez is rigorous in referencing her claims throughout, but her end notes often direct us to web links rather than full citations (which reference a published source in an effort to specifically acknowledge the work of others). </p>
<p>Do citation practices really matter? Well, yes, according to Perez’s chapter, The Myth of Meritocracy. Here she notes both that women are systematically cited less than men and that female academics are more likely than men to challenge male-default thinking in their work. In light of this, not to name so many of the researchers who conducted the work her book relies on risks perpetuating the problem. </p>
<p>Because that’s the thing about the default male: he’s in all our heads.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Boyle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new book makes a devastating case about the damaging effects of unconscious bias in a world skewed heavily towards men.Karen Boyle, Chair in Feminist Media Studies, University of Strathclyde Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/933992018-03-15T10:44:48Z2018-03-15T10:44:48ZZero tolerance discipline policies won’t fix school shootings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210426/original/file-20180314-113485-1hfgfn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Trump administration aims to revisit school discipline policies. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/schoolboy-crying-hallway-school-negative-emotion-597825089">Roman Bodnarchuk/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As outrage over the Parkland school shooting persists, lawmakers are looking for actual policy solutions. Unfortunately, they sometimes misunderstand or misuse the facts that should drive policy. </p>
<p>The Trump administration and its supporters are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/us/politics/trump-school-shootings-obama-discipline-policies.html">latching</a> onto school discipline reform as the solution. But by reform, they do not mean improving school climate, ensuring fairness or getting students the mental and social services they need. They mean doing away with the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/is-school-discipline-reform-moving-too-fast/550196/">school discipline reform</a> the Obama administration helped spur. They mean doubling down on zero tolerance. Last week, Florida’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio went so far as to <a href="https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=70A6D80E-6F0C-432B-A07B-DD77E1C8C70C">write</a> that “federal guidance may have contributed to systemic failures to report Nikolas Cruz’s dangerous behaviors to local law enforcement.” Cruz is accused of carrying out the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida. </p>
<p>Rubio is referencing a 2014 <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201401-title-vi.html">memo</a> by the Department of Education and Department of Justice under President Barack Obama. The memo placed some limits on zero tolerance and encouraged school districts to adopt proactive research-based approaches to student misbehavior. It took over a decade, but <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-17400-002">social scientists</a> and educators began convincing policymakers that the country had made a mistake with its zero tolerance discipline policies. </p>
<p>Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-education/2018/03/13/trump-school-safety-plan-targets-obama-discipline-directive-130118">officials and supporters think</a> — or would have people believe — that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/is-school-discipline-reform-moving-too-fast/550196/">the new push</a> to improve school discipline had something to do with the Parkland shooting. It didn’t. And getting rid of research-based approaches to discipline is, in my opinion as a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=621981">professor of law and education policy</a>, an even worse idea than arming school teachers.</p>
<h2>What really works and doesn’t</h2>
<p>But powerful stories drive perception and policy. The stories that get told and retold eventually come to matter just as much as research. So here’s a story that runs counter to the Trump adminstration’s current narrative that stronger discipline is the answer. On Sept. 28, 2016, a 14-year-old boy in Ashland City, Tennessee, entered his school with a gun. His plan was to kill teachers and a police officer. But he stopped by his guidance counselor’s office first. After 45 minutes, the guidance counselor, Molly Hudgens, talked him into giving her the gun. She said her <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/30/a-teen-brought-a-gun-to-his-middle-school-this-counselor-talked-him-out-of-killing-teachers-and-a-cop/?utm_term=.b863dd85ceef">training in de-escalation</a> allowed her to persuade him. The local sheriff <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/30/a-teen-brought-a-gun-to-his-middle-school-this-counselor-talked-him-out-of-killing-teachers-and-a-cop/?utm_term=.b863dd85ceef">said</a>: “She did something even the most experienced law enforcement officer might not do. Had she not been there, it could have been very different.”</p>
<p>The aftermath of <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/columbine-high-school-shootings">Columbine</a> also offers its own lessons. In the panic that followed, the nation <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/04/18/304526475/15-years-after-columbine-are-schools-any-safer">ratcheted</a> up its school punishments. Not only would students be expelled for bringing guns and drugs to school, they would be expelled for things like “<a href="https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/sites/default/files/discipline-compendium/Mississippi%20School%20Discipline%20Laws%20and%20Regulations.pdf">habitual disruption</a>” and disrespect. Some schools went so far as to suspend students for chewing Pop-Tarts into the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/pop-tart-gun-bill_n_2852472.html">shape of guns</a> and for playing games like cops and robbers when they include <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/zero-tolerance-guns-schools-newtown/">imaginary guns</a>. </p>
<p>As I detail in my book, <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479877027/">“Ending Zero Tolerance,”</a> the results of harsh discipline policies have been disappointing to say the least. If zero tolerance was an effective deterrent, it would have eventually caused suspensions to decline, while safety and achievement increased. But suspension rates steadily increased across time. By 2011, schools were suspending and expelling <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/school-discipline/data.html">3.5 million</a> students a year. For African-American students, the <a href="https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/resources/projects/center-for-civil-rights-remedies/school-to-prison-folder/federal-reports/are-we-closing-the-school-discipline-gap/AreWeClosingTheSchoolDisciplineGap_FINAL221.pdf">rate of suspension</a> increased by 60 percent. Most of these suspensions and expulsions were for relatively minor misbehavior. For instance, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2756497">fewer than 10 percent</a> of those suspensions and expulsions involved guns or drugs. And the incidental effects were equally disturbing.</p>
<h2>How suspensions impact schools</h2>
<p>Research has shown that high suspension rates are <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eatlantic/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Academic-Cost-of-School-Discipline.pdf">related to lower academic achievement</a>, including for the well-behaved students that suspensions purportedly protect. One of the reasons is that when schools regularly suspend students for minor misbehavior, they alter the overall student body’s perception of school. Students no longer see school officials making the learning environment safe or orderly. They see school officials acting <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2015/01/05/the-overuse-of-suspension-in-american-public-schools-threatens-the-success-of-all-students/">punitively</a> toward their friends, family and peers. </p>
<p>And when students see a school’s discipline approach as overly strict or harsh, they see school authority as <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018143">arbitrary and unfair</a>. When student bystanders see schools suspend friends who are struggling due to factors beyond their control – such as homelessness, poverty, abuse or a disability — students come to see suspension and expulsion as downright perverse. These perceptions produce <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2015/01/05/the-overuse-of-suspension-in-american-public-schools-threatens-the-success-of-all-students/">more chaos</a>, not less. </p>
<p>Parkland, to its credit, had been providing students with <a href="https://www.browardprevention.org/mtssrti/rtib/">services and support</a>, rather than jumping straight to <a href="http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/ospa/ospa-central2/_sip_plan_evidence/2017/3061_03132016_5.2-SPBP.pdf">suspensions and expulsions</a>. It had recognized the shooter’s struggles well before the tragedy and attempted to connect him with <a href="https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/2018/02/27/teachers-marjory-stoneman-douglas-high-teachers-wanted-transfer-shooter-school-mental-health-service/376363002/">social supports</a>, before finally <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/us/nikolas-cruz-florida-shooting.html">expelling</a> him last year. Regardless, students from Parkland aren’t claiming that the school’s discipline philosophy was related to this tragedy. It is politicians, who do not know what they are talking about, who make this claim. These voices would have us repeat the zero tolerance craze that followed Columbine.</p>
<h2>Progressive versus punitive</h2>
<p>As I warned in my book, “No matter how much progress is made at the federal, state, and local levels in the coming years, harsh discipline and zero tolerance will almost certainly persist.” So discipline reformers should not assume they had secured victory simply because the Obama administration had adopted a progressive school discipline memo. Now the fight for sane discipline has returned to their doorsteps.</p>
<p>Training and supportive approaches to discipline cannot guarantee school shootings won’t happen, but research says the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/schoolviolence/prevention.html">best chance of reducing violence</a>, and also improving the overall academic achievement and environment of schools, rests in rejecting punitive school discipline and replacing it with supportive systems. If we abandon the progressive steps that schools are taking, we will consign students to a darker world, not a safer one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93399/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek W. Black does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the failure of zero tolerance discipline policies in schools, the Trump administration is targeting an Obama-era memo that sought to limit such policies.Derek W. Black, Professor of Law, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/759722017-05-10T01:34:43Z2017-05-10T01:34:43Z‘Moonlight’ schooled Hollywood on race. Can it take on school discipline, too?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168645/original/file-20170509-11018-3d5132.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">2017's winner for Best Picture casts new light on the issue of school discipline reform.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://moonlight.movie/">A24 Films</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year’s Academy Award winner for best picture tackles a difficult topic in the education world today: school discipline. In “<a href="http://moonlight.movie/">Moonlight</a>,” high school boys taunt the main character, Chiron, with homophobic slurs before beating him. The next day, Chiron shatters a chair across the back of the ringleader. Chiron is handcuffed and sent to an alternative school, setting him on the path toward dealing drugs.</p>
<p>While Chiron does become the aggressor, he is ultimately the victim and suffers an utterly cruel punishment for his revenge.</p>
<p>This dichotomy captures the major insight of <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479877027/">my recent research on school discipline</a>: that suspensions and expulsions frequently ignore the causes of student misbehavior.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">In a scene from ‘Moonlight,’ Chiron takes revenge after being bullied and beaten.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Why do kids misbehave?</h2>
<p>Normal human development can explain a lot of misbehavior. Younger children, for instance, lack the capacity to always behave; no matter the rules, elementary school students occasionally talk out of turn, push each other and disrupt class. Older students sometimes push boundaries in other, more serious, ways. Making and learning from these mistakes is simply <a href="http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_misunderstood_middle_schooler">part of growing up</a>. </p>
<p>Disabilities, academic struggles, poverty, homelessness and family crises can also <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/teach/problemstudent.html">affect behavior</a>. For students in these situations, misbehavior is often a sign of unmet needs – not a character flaw.</p>
<p>The school environment adds another complicating layer. Educators make choices about how they discipline students, which can influence <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eatlantic/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Academic-Cost-of-School-Discipline.pdf">classroom culture, student behavior and academic achievement</a>. Research has shown that punitive approaches create environments that actually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(00)00059-7">make misbehavior more likely</a>. As one group of scholars <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02171974">concluded</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[Students] interested in reducing their chances of being suspended… [would] be better off by transferring to a school with a lower suspension rate rather than by improving their attitudes or reducing their misbehavior.”</p>
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<span class="caption">Student misbehavior and the pushing of boundaries are a natural part of child development.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/students-passing-notes-class-99626366?src=kOYDkr78f7f7Jz1cx3TF8w-1-4">Blend Images / Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<h2>Understanding Chiron</h2>
<p>“Moonlight” brings all these interconnected factors together to help the audience understand student behavior. Chiron breached an obvious boundary that cannot be condoned. Yet, his punishment seems unjust because the audience sympathizes with his struggle: His mother is a drug addict. He suffers harassment for his sexual identity. His first lover turned against him.</p>
<p>But rather than protect him, the school leaves Chiron to deal with these challenges alone. None of this excuses Chiron’s act, but it likely deflates the audience’s urge to label Chiron as a violent student who deserves expulsion or jail.</p>
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<span class="caption">Chiron’s misbehavior in the film is portrayed in the context of his difficult life experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://moonlight.movie/">A24 Films</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Current discipline trends</h2>
<p>Public schools suspend or expel <a href="http://ocrdata.ed.gov/Downloads/CRDC-School-Discipline-Snapshot.pdf">three million students</a> a year – often with no attention to context. (Thirty-four to 42 percent of those students are African-American.) The vast majority of suspensions and expulsions are for behavior less serious than Chiron’s. In Connecticut, for instance, only about <a href="http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/deps/sctg/suspensions_and_expulsions_2015.pdf">10 percent</a> of suspensions and expulsions are for weapons, violence or drug-related behavior. Most are for everyday misbehavior.</p>
<p>Like Chiron, the data also show that a single suspension increases the chances of a <a href="http://b.3cdn.net/advancement/d05cb2181a4545db07_r2im6caqe.pdf">cascade effect</a>: subsequent suspension and expulsion, academic failure, dropping out and incarceration. With so much at stake, I believe schools owe students a far more thoughtful discipline system.</p>
<p>When school discipline responds to students’ needs, it produces <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2756497">better behavior and academic achievement</a> for all students – not just struggling students. Schools with <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289687063_The_Punishment_Gap_School_Suspension_and_Racial_Disparities_in_Achievement">the highest achievement</a> are those that deal with misbehavior through means other than just <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eatlantic/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Academic-Cost-of-School-Discipline.pdf">suspension, expulsion and law enforcement</a>.</p>
<p>These successful schools offer counseling, academic services and <a href="https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/resources/projects/center-for-civil-rights-remedies/school-to-prison-folder/federal-reports/are-we-closing-the-school-discipline-gap/AreWeClosingTheSchoolDisciplineGap_FINAL221.pdf">other programs</a> to help students work through their problems and to reinforce good behavior. When misbehavior inevitably occurs, it becomes a learning opportunity for students and teachers.</p>
<p>This kind of approach, like “Moonlight,” humanizes student behavior.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek W. Black does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the Oscar-winning film ‘Moonlight,’ as well as schools across the US, student misbehavior is being cast in a new light. How can school discipline address the root of the problem and save our kids?Derek W. Black, Professor of Law, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/574912016-04-13T20:15:47Z2016-04-13T20:15:47ZHow ‘tough on crime’ politics flouts death-in-custody recommendations<p>Whatever might be said about its successes and failures, it’s clear that 25 years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/rciadic/">tabled its final report</a>, Australia has become much less compassionate, more punitive and more ready to blame individuals for their alleged failings. </p>
<p>Nowhere is this more clear than in our desire for punishment. A harsh criminal justice system – in particular, more prisons and people behind bars – has apparently become a hallmark of good government.</p>
<p>This wasn’t always the case. But it just so happened that the royal commission handed down its findings at a time when the politics of law and order was rapidly changing. </p>
<h2>Reform to intolerance</h2>
<p>The 1970s through to the late 1980s was a period of criminal justice reform. Decriminalisation of certain types of summary offences, such as public drunkenness and prostitution; a commitment to reducing prison numbers through the introduction of community service orders and other non-custodial sentencing options; the development of mental health services for offenders; specific programs for women prisoners; and improved conditions for prisoners more generally: these were <a href="http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/24468/">key parts of the political agenda</a>. </p>
<p>But, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, changing political conditions were <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUIndigLawRw/2011/2.html">no longer conducive to effective reform</a> of the criminal justice system.</p>
<p>By the 1990s, state and territory governments no longer spoke of reducing prison numbers, but rather of <a href="http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/24468/">the need to lock more people away</a>. </p>
<p>This move toward “law and order” responses manifested in:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>increased police powers, particularly in relation to public order;</p></li>
<li><p>“zero tolerance”-style laws that <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UWALawRw/1999/10.pdf">increased the use of arrest or detention</a> for minor offences;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/tandi_pdf/tandi138.pdf">mandatory prison sentences</a> for various offences (particularly in the Northern Territory and Western Australia);</p></li>
<li><p>controls over judicial discretion through the introduction of mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment; </p></li>
<li><p>a growing use of remand and <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-for-punishment-we-need-to-understand-bail-not-review-it-28651">restrictions on bail eligibility</a>; </p></li>
<li><p>longer terms of imprisonment for a range of offences, most recently <a href="https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/article/view/145">New South Wales’ so-called “one-punch laws”</a>; </p></li>
<li><p>more people <a href="http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/24468/">sentenced to prison than non-custodial options</a>; and </p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/24468/">changes to parole and post-release surveillance</a>, which have made parole more difficult to obtain and easier to revoke.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There was <a href="http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/24468/">both a judicial and political perception</a> of the need for “tougher” penalties, often based on political expedience and media-fuelled public alarm over particular crimes. </p>
<p>While these administrative, legal and technical changes contributed to increasing prison numbers, they also reflected a less tolerant and more punitive approach to crime and punishment. </p>
<p>Put bluntly, the last 25 years have seen a spectacle of punishment most graphically illustrated in climbing imprisonment rates. And these changes were directly in opposition to the fundamental findings of the royal commission, which advocated a reduction in Indigenous imprisonment rates. </p>
<h2>Self-fulfilling practices</h2>
<p>The Australian prison estate <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services">now costs well over A$3 billion a year</a> to operate. And building a prison <a href="http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/24468/">can cost between $500 million and $1 billion</a>, depending on its location, security level and size. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118520/original/image-20160413-23623-r623yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118520/original/image-20160413-23623-r623yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118520/original/image-20160413-23623-r623yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118520/original/image-20160413-23623-r623yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118520/original/image-20160413-23623-r623yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118520/original/image-20160413-23623-r623yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118520/original/image-20160413-23623-r623yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Imprisonment rates in Australia are not the result of increased levels of crime, since increases in imprisonment rates have continued while crime rates have levelled or fallen in many categories of crime from 2000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/710928003/1254166079/">♪ ~/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such is the financial cost of our commitment to <a href="http://netk.net.au/Prisons/Prisons2.pdf">a system that’s widely ineffective</a> in reducing re-offending, and significantly contributes to the further marginalisation of those who are incarcerated.</p>
<p>These increases in imprisonment in Australia have been paralleled in other countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand and, more recently, Canada. It is <a href="http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/24468/">arguably their embrace of the neoliberal agenda</a> that has led these countries down the path of a harsher approach to crime and punishment. </p>
<p>In contrast, European jurisdictions that have more social democratic and corporatist forms of government have <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/law/criminal-law/prisoners-dilemma-political-economy-and-punishment-contemporary-democracies?format=PB&isbn=9780521728294">sustained more moderate criminal justice policies</a> and have relied less on exclusionary and punitive approaches to punishment.</p>
<p>But states that experienced a decline in principles and policies reflecting the welfare state and embraced neoliberal notions had a realignment of values and approaches that emphasised “deeds over needs”. </p>
<p>Their focus shifted from rehabilitative goals to an emphasis on deterrence and retribution. Individual responsibility and accountability increasingly became the core of the way justice systems responded to offenders. </p>
<p>Privatisation of institutions and services; widening social and economic inequality; and new or renewed insecurities around fear of crime, terrorism, “illegal” immigrants and racial, religious and ethnic minorities have all impacted the way their criminal justice systems operate. </p>
<p>Completing the cycle, these changes, in turn, <a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/4385/2/The_globalisation_of_crime_control.pdf">fuelled social demands for authoritarian law-and-order strategies</a>.</p>
<h2>Human warehouses</h2>
<p>In understanding the use of imprisonment, one of the most important points to grasp is that a rising imprisonment rate is not directly or simply related to an increase in crime. </p>
<p>The use of prison is a function of government choices; it reflects government policy and legislation, as well as judicial decision-making. </p>
<p>Imprisonment rates in Australia are <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4530.0Main+Features12013-14?OpenDocument">not the result of increased levels of crime</a>, since increases in imprisonment rates have continued while crime rates have levelled or fallen in many categories of crime from 2000. Similar patterns are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equal_Societies_Almost_Always_Do_Better">seen internationally</a>. </p>
<p>The growth of the law-and-order agenda has also resulted in far weaker ideological differentiation between major political parties on criminal justice policy. The most politically expedient response to crime is the promotion and implementation of the “toughest” approach. </p>
<p>While conservative political parties may have traditionally appeared to be “tougher” on crime and punishment, many Australian states and territories, such as New South Wales and <a href="http://www.app.unsw.edu.au/section-5-political-timeline-5">the Northern Territory</a>, have <a href="http://www.app.unsw.edu.au/nt-indigenous-imprisonment-rate-compared-australian-imprisonment-rate">sustained and large increases in imprisonment rates</a> under Labor governments.</p>
<p>In the process, prisons have become human warehouses for marginalised peoples, and most particularly Indigenous people. This point is graphically illustrated by the fact that Indigenous men are now <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-03/fact-check-aboriginal-men-in-jail-and-university/6907540">more likely to be siting in a prison cell</a> than in a university classroom.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/royal-commission-special-report">a special report</a> marking the 25th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/royal-commission-special-report">Check out the rest of the package</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57491/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Cunneen receives funding from the Australian Research Council competitive research grants scheme. </span></em></p>Australia has become less compassionate, more punitive and more ready to blame individuals for their alleged failings since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.Chris Cunneen, Professor of Criminology, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.