Unlikely downsizers : the prison service's role in reversing mass incarceration in Kazakhstan
Slade, Gavin and Trochev, Alexei and Piacentini, Laura (2023) Unlikely downsizers : the prison service's role in reversing mass incarceration in Kazakhstan. Theoretical Criminology, 27 (4). pp. 573-596. ISSN 1362-4806 (https://doi.org/10.1177/13624806231177020)
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Abstract
Since 2000, the prison rate has declined significantly in Kazakhstan. This article demonstrates that the Kazakhstani prison service, counterintuitively, became a key advocate of prison downsizing owing to a coalescence of norms and incentives in the 1980s and 1990s. In the process, the prison service elite maintained the loyalty of rank-and-file personnel through a focus on reform to performative and quantifiable measures of penal performance – such as rankings in the World Prison Brief – while qualitative changes to the service's identity and organization remained unchanged. Prison staff remained militarized and their livelihood and professional culture continued to be independent of the existence of prisons. In conclusion, we argue that the Kazakhstani case demonstrates the need for an integrative theory of penal change that focuses on the interplay of macro-, meso- and micro-level factors in relationally shaping the norms, incentives and opportunities of penal policy actors.
ORCID iDs
Slade, Gavin, Trochev, Alexei and Piacentini, Laura ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3817-6012;-
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Item type: Article ID code: 86127 Dates: DateEvent30 November 2023Published6 June 2023Published Online19 April 2023AcceptedSubjects: Social Sciences > Social pathology. Social and public welfare > Criminal justice administration Department: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > Social Work and Social Policy > Social Work and Social Policy Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 12 Jul 2023 15:33 Last modified: 04 Dec 2024 01:27 URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/86127