Problem-solving Criminal Justice

Criminal justice reform went through a prolonged period of what we might think of as “problem-solving politics” from the mid-2000s to the late 2010s. In this period, there was a widespread focus on passing measures that reduced the scale of incarceration while not increasing violent crime. There were two key structural factors behind this shift to a problem-solving mode of criminal justice reform. First, the lowered salience of the issue among the general public, and the way that key activists and organizations actively sought lower-salience venues for policymaking, facilitated repeated, incremental reforms in conservative states. Second, diminished polarization around criminal justice was a function of the increasing salience of libertarian ideas on the right in the 2010s, as well as the specifically trans-partisan strategies of activists and funders. A close analysis of the politics of the politics of criminal justice reform from the mid-2000s to the late 2010s shows that the scope of problem-solving politics is limited by features of the larger political contexts over which activists, intellectuals and experts have little influence. That said, the potential for at least some problem-solving policymaking is always present, even where higher political salience makes it challenging. However, policy entrepreneurs may need to be flexible about the specific problems that can be solved at any one period. But it may be possible even in relatively less problem-solving periods to engage in “political investments” that will bear fruit in later periods.