Smart on crime: The new language for prisoner release

Abstract

This exploratory study of news media reports examines language of incarceration shifts from ‘tough on crime’ to ‘smart on crime’ as a feature of broader, contextual meanings about: (1) the costs and benefits of prison and incarceration; (2) the moral meanings and ‘practical reasoning’ associated with imprisonment; (3) the language of deviance and respectability. This work is linked to two long-term projects. One is the ‘discourse of fear’, the pervasive communication, symbolic awareness, and expectation that danger and risk are a central feature of everyday life. The other is ‘the language of justice’, or a discourse analysis of justice speech and the construction of social control. Our aim in this project is to explore the changing discourse of incarceration. News reports were selected and analyzed using ethnographic content analysis and ‘tracking discourse’, or following certain issues, words, themes, and frames over a period of time, across different issues, and across different news media. We find that ‘smart on crime’ did promote more lenient sentences for less demonized offenders, but the message was more receptive to news organizations if delivered by claims makers associated with criminal justice organizations. Some implications for claims making and the social construction of reality are discussed.