By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Thereafter, the Labour­led coalition government attempted to change direction byintroducing a series of initiatives entitled Effective Interventions that would, interalia, see the introduction of a Sentencing Council aimed to depoliticise sentencing.In so doing, the government ‘welcomed back’ expert knowledge to penalpolicymaking (in the form of the Law Commission). To some extent, this began topay dividends, as is reflected in the decline in the rate of imprisonment from 2007 to2008, as shown in Figure 1. However, the centre­right National Party won the 2008election, jettisoned the Effective Interventions strategies, quickly imposed restraintson parole and introduced plans for longer prison sentences. The thesis thus exploresthe power and purchase of penal populism in the midst of these political strugglesaround punishment.What is Penal Populism?A great deal has been written on the concept of penal populism (Bottoms, 1995;Freiberg & Gelb, 2008; Garland, 2001; Pratt, 2007; Roberts, 2008; Roberts, et al.,2003). In 1993, one of the first writers on this issue, Sir Anthony Bottoms (1995:40), coined the phrase ‘populist punitiveness’ to ‘convey the notion of politicianstapping into, and using for their own purposes, what they believe to be the public’sgenerally punitive stance’ 2 . Since then, notions of populism, and more importantlypenal populism, have been explored to explain the significant shift that has takenplace regarding the role of ‘the public’ in the criminal justice system. Populism canbe seen to reflect the disenchantment felt by a distinct segment of society whobelieve they have been left out, or simply forgotten, by a government that is thoughtto favour less worthy members of the population (Gustafson, 2006; Pratt, 2007). Inthis context, penal populism has been used to explain the relationship that hasdeveloped between one such ‘forgotten’ group – crime victims and theirrepresentatives – and government (Pratt, 2007). This new body, made up of ‘pressuregroups, citizens’ rights advocates, talk­back radio hosts and callers and so on’,claims to speak on behalf of ‘ordinary people’ and have become increasinglyinfluential in policy development (Pratt, 2007: 12). This has ensured that law andorder has become a fundamental element in both the public and political arena,2Here, punitivity will be used to refer to public responses that indicate support for the harsh control ofoffenders.9