Understanding the recent contrasting trends in prison population rates in times of economic crisis: a challenge for the Political Economy of Punishment approach

From the 1980s to the mid-2000s, the overall prison population trends rose in Western Europe, with a few limited exceptions. Since that time, however the rates have tended to vary widely from one country to another. Understanding some of these contrasting trends represents a real challenge in view of previous lessons from the Political Economy of Punishment approach. Despite the fact that the crisis of 2008 had a similar economic impact in various countries, they can present highly contrasting trends in prison population rates. In fact, the drops in incarceration rates are more surprising than the rises. Furthermore, at the moment, present analyses of these downward trends raise more questions for research than definitive answers. Our contribution will be focused at first on four countries belonging to the Central Western group as defined in the Esping-Andersen’s welfare state typology. In addition to a traditional analysis of the impact of crime rates and economic variables, the purpose of our study is to examine the relevance of variables related, on the one hand, to the political situation and changes and on the other, to evolutions in public opinion.