This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Rhodes, S. L. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Democratic Justice

The Responsiveness of Prison Population Size to Public Policy Preferences

University of Kentucky

How much influence do citizens have over government decisions? One way in which scholars have attempted to answer this question is by assessing the correspondence between public opinion and public policy. Past research has found that, sometimes, mass attitudes and government outputs have moved together, but these studies did not control for other factors which might cause policy change. This article tests a multivariate model describing the behavior of policy outputs in one substantive area over time. A simultaneous equation model of prison admissions, releases, and rated capacity is developed and its parameters estimated using time-series data from California for the period from 1946 through 1980. Two indicators of public preferences, the percentage of national poll respondents favoring capital punishment and the proportion of the vote for governor cast for the Republican party candidate, are found to exert significant effects on correctional policy outputs.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?