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Scholars and lay persons alike routinely express concern about the capacity of democratic publics to respond rationally to emotionally charged issues such as crime, particularly when race and class biases are invoked. This is especially true in the United States, which has the highest imprisonment rate in the developed world, the result, many argue, of too many opportunities for elected officials to be highly responsive to public opinion. Limiting the power of democratic publics, in this view, is an essential component of modern governance precisely because of the risk that broad democratic participation can encourage impulsive, irrational and even murderous demands. These claims about panic-prone mass publics-about the dangers of 'mob rule'-are widespread and are the central focus of Lisa L. Miller's The Myth of Mob Rule. Are democratic majorities easily drawn to crime as a political issue, even when risk of violence is low? Do they support 'rational alternatives' to wholly repressive practices, or are they essentially the bellua multorum capitum, the "many-headed beast," winnowing problems of crime and violence down to inexorably harsh retributive justice? Drawing on a comparative case study of three countries-the U.S., the U.K. and the Netherlands-The Myth of Mob Rule explores when and with what consequences crime becomes a politically salient issue. Using extensive data from multiple sources, the analyses reverses many of the accepted causal claims in the literature and finds that: serious violence is an important underlying condition for sustained public and political attention to crime; the United States has high levels of both crime and punishment in part because it has failed, in racially stratified ways, to produce fundamental collective goods that insulate modern democratic citizens from risk of violence, a consequence of a democratic deficit, not a democratic surplus; and finally, countries with multi-party parliamentary systems are more responsive to mass publics than the U.S. on crime and that such responsiveness promotes protection from a range of social risks, including from excessive violence and state repression.
This title was first published in 2001. This book explores the complex and often striking differences between national and local perspectives, particularly those of racial minorities, on crime prevention and the role that community residents should play in prevention programmes.
This title was first published in 2001. This book explores the complex and often striking differences between national and local perspectives, particularly those of racial minorities, on crime prevention and the role that community residents should play in prevention programmes.
In the past dozen years, a number of American cities plagued by gun
violence have tried to enact local laws to stem gun-related crime.
Yet policymakers at the state and federal levels have very
frequently stymied their efforts. This is not an atypical
phenomenon. In fact, for a whole range of pressing social problems,
state and federal policymakers ignore the demands of local
communities that suffer from such ills the most. Lisa L. Miller
asks, how does America's multi-tiered political system shape crime
policy in ways that empower the higher levels of government yet
demobilize and disempower local communities? After all, crime has a
disproportionate impact on poor and minority communities, which
typically connect crime and violence to broader social and economic
inequities at the local level. As The Perils of Federalism
powerfully demonstrates, though, the real control to set policy
lies with the state and federal governments, and at these levels
single-issue advocates--gun rights groups as well as prison,
prosecutorial and law enforcement agencies--are able to shape
policy over the heads of the people most affected by the issue.
In The Myth of Mob Rule, Lisa Miller compares three countries-the US, the UK, and the Netherlands-and explores when and with what consequences crime becomes a politically salient issue. Drawing from extensive original research, her findings reverse many of the accepted causal claims in the literature, finding that countries with multi-party parliamentary systems are more responsive to mass publics than the U.S. on crime and that such responsiveness promotes protection from a range of social risks, including from excessive violence and state repression. In other words, democratic publics in such countries support measures against violent crime, but also support policies that alleviate and improve social conditions in high-crime areas. The Myth of Mob Rule is essential reading for anyone concerned with the ways that political institutions affect crime and social welfare.
Much of the existing research on race and crime focuses on the
manipulation of crime by political elites or the racially biased
nature of crime policy. In contrast, Lisa L. Miller here
specifically focuses on political and socio-legal institutions and
actors that drive these developments and their relationship to the
politics of race and poverty; in particular, the degree to which
citizens at most risk of victimization--primarily racial minorities
and the poor--play a role in the development of political responses
to crime and violence.
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