1960s America saw increasingly pro-punishment attitudes among whites. In new research, Adriane Fresh finds that much of this ‘punitive turn’ among whites can be linked to Black Americans’ expanded Civil Rights, with white Southerners seeking to claw back some of their former hierarchy. Using support for the death penalty as an example, she writes that Southern whites experienced the largest change in punitive attitudes, though Black communities suffered the most from crime mid-century.

A dramatic change in punitive attitudes, punitive policy, and punitive outcomes occurred in the 1960s United States. My new research supports the argument that this ‘punitive turn’ was a reaction to the gains made by Black people as a consequence of the Civil Rights Movement. White people in the US South were those arguably most threated by the mid-century gains of Black people. They were also those whose punitive attitudes underwent the most dramatic mid-century change.

The 1960s saw a growth in punitive attitudes and policies

The link between race and punishment runs deep in American history. The first police were organized as slave patrols in South Carolina in the 1700s. Emancipation ushered in an era of vagrancy laws that directed newly-free Black people into prison chain gangs—so-called slavery by another name. Today, 30 percent of Black men can expect to experience prison at some point in their lives, seven times the rate for white men.

Despite the deep historical linkages between race and punishment, a notable change took place in the mid-20th century in how those two phenomena were linked. This punitive turn was characterized by stronger political rhetoric promoting punishment, dog-whistled racism, public opinion which favored harsher punishment, a slate of harsh law and order public policies, and rapidly growing race-based mass incarceration.

Explanations for the punitive turn are rooted in post-civil rights racial threat

For scholars of history and politics like me, the natural question is why the punitive turn took place when it did. The highly racialized nature of the punitive turn and its aftermath has led many scholars to contend that the core explanation lies in reaction to racial threat. The political and economic gains made by Black people as a consequence of the Civil Rights Movement upset a long-standing racial hierarchy from which white people—and, in particular, white Southerners—had derived meaningful material benefits, as well as significant status.

The threat posed to this hierarchy provided fertile ground for punishment to both express dissatisfaction with the new system, and claw back some semblance of the former hierarchy. Whether political elites were entrepreneurial in drawing the public’s attention to punishment as the proper solution to crime, or whether politicians merely built upon existing mass sentiment, we know that punitive policy followed.

Two implications follow from this argument. Who should be most likely to change their punitive attitudes in the mid-century? Those who benefited most from the formal racial hierarchy—white people. And where should punitive attitudes have grown the most? The South, where racial hierarchy had the longest legacy and played the most central role in political, social and economic life.

Figure 1 – Death penalty support for white and Black respondents

White people in the US South experienced the largest turn in punitive attitudes

Between 1953 and 1985 more than 40,000 Americans answered Gallup and General Social Survey polls asking them about their support for the most extreme form of state punishment in the US—the death penalty. The death penalty is just one punitive policy amongst many that we might care about, but importantly, questions about this policy were asked before, during, and after the punitive turn of the 1960s.  

White respondents experienced the most significant change in their support for the death penalty at the punitive turn. Although they were more supportive of the death penalty prior to the 1960s, they increased their support for the death penalty by around 12 percentage points. A White respondent in the 1980s was 1.5 times as likely to support the death penalty as they had been in the 1950s. 

Photo by Jamie Taylor on Unsplash

Respondents in the US South also increased their support for the death penalty more than respondents in any other region. The South was less punitive than other regions before 1967 but made up three quarters of that regional gap in death penalty support by the 1980s.

It was white respondents in the South who transformed their support the most of any racial-regional group. White respondents in both the South and non-South were more supportive of the death penalty than Black respondents before 1967—and they were more supportive by about the same amount in each region. After the punitive turn, however, that gap between white and Black respondents had grown significantly more in the South than outside of the South.

Figure 2 – Average race-by region differences in death penalty support before to after the punitive turn

This turn in attitudes wasn’t “just” about crime

Crime rose dramatically in the mid-century United States. The homicide rate more than doubled between 1950 and 1980.  Property crime grew even faster. But racial and geographic differences in death penalty support are robust in accounting for the role of both national crime (as well as other national trends), and regional crime. Respondents in the South did not become more supportive of the death penalty simply because they experienced higher crime rates as compared to other regions.

Black communities suffered the most from crime in the mid-century. And although Black respondents’ support for the death penalty did grow, it did not grow to the same degree as White respondents.

This doesn’t dismiss the importance of crime—rising crime was a mid-century reality that mattered deeply to people. But why it mattered, to whom it mattered, and what policies were seen as appropriate remedies were not simple reflections of who experienced crime where.  

The punitive turn wasn’t driven by the Northeast and Midwest, nor by the broader sunbelt region

The US South features prominently in explanations of the punitive turn because of the importance of racial hierarchy to its history. But it is not the only theory that makes geographic predictions about punitive change during the mid-century. Northeastern and Midwestern cities were hard hit by crime and economic decline and had given up on the welfare state as their savior. Did their punitive attitudes change as dramatically as did those in the South? My results say no.

The broader Sunbelt—which combines the Southwest along with the South—is frequently seen as a pioneer in state-level punitive policy that spread nationwide. Does the South matter because the Sunbelt matters? My results also say no.

Could the contemporary US experience another punitive turn?

A 21st century bipartisan constituency has defied widespread partisan polarization to tackle criminal justice reform at both the state and national levels. Punitive attitudes in the mass public declined for the first time at the turn of the 21st century. And the 2000s saw the first decline in US prison populations since the mid-century.

And yet, the current political rhetoric of “law and order” eerily harkens back to that of the mid-20th century as racial gains—and the demands for more—once again are perceived by many as a threat to established hierarchies. What’s more, the genuine spike in crime that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic glows like an ember, ready to ignite the kindling scattered by elite law and order rhetoric.

Figure 3 – Homicide rates at the punitive turn

Still, despite the similarities between mid-century and today, one thing that is different is the knowledge that America has gained from its last experiment in mass incarceration. Reminding the public of the human and financial toll of mass incarceration could be front and center for those on guard against a recrudescent punitive turn. 

• This article is based on the paper, ‘The Racial Geography of U.S. Public Opinion at the Punitive Turn’ in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics
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• Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.