By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

the exterior of electoral politics, and crime was treated as an issue that should be keptout of the public arena as it was ‘potentially explosive and emotionally charged’(Loader, 2006: 569).From Penal­Welfarism to Penal PopulismBy the 1970s, however, the security and cohesion of post­war Anglophone societieshad begun to erode (see Garland, 2001; Putnam, 2000). In particular, economicstability began to crumble during the 1970s and employment patterns shifted awayfrom primary and secondary sector employment, to a massive increase in jobavailability in service sector industries (Advisory Committee on Prices and Incomes,1986) 5 . These jobs offered less security and were either part­time, low paid jobs orhighly skilled professional jobs, out of reach of those no longer needed in primaryand secondary industries. Over the next decade, unemployment rose markedly and,for many, this unemployment was for increasingly long periods. The ‘life long’ jobsthat had offered so much security and stability to citizens during the early post­waryears had been stripped away. Reliance on the welfare state safety net became a wayof life for many.The growing decline in social solidarity and the unease associated with this wasexacerbated by the growth of crime across Anglophone societies (Kury & Ferdinand,1999). When examining Canada, for instance, the overall crime rates roseconsiderably from 1960 to 1990 (Statistics Canada, 2004). In 1962, the total criminalcode offence rate was 2,771 per 100,000 of the population and by 1982 it hadreached a rate of 8,773 (Statistics Canada, 2004). Ten years on it was peaking at arate of 10,040 (Statistics Canada, 2004). Similarly, in the United States the crimerate rose steadily from a rate of 1,887 per 100,000 of the population in 1960 to a rateof 5,484 in 1993 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008c). This pattern of rising crimeadded to the growing sense of insecurity amongst the publics of these countries (forstatistics on Australia and England see, for example, Australia Bureau of Statistics,1970; Barclay, et al., 2001; Hicks & Allen, 1999). Penal populism then emerged5Generally speaking, the primary sector includes industries such as agriculture, fishery and farming,which produce products from natural resources, while the secondary sector includes industries such asmanufacturing, electricity and construction that make usable products (Heisz & Cote, 1999). Theservice sector is comprised of those industries excluded from the secondary and primary sector, suchas tourism, government, marketing, hospitality and social services, where the emphasis is on theconsumer (Australia Bureau of Statistics, 1986).13