O R I G I N A L P A P E R

Participatory Democracy and Criminal Justice

Albert W. Dzur

Published online: 22 April 2012
� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract This essay asks if there is a role for an active public in ratcheting down the
harsh politics of crime control in the United States and the United Kingdom that has led to

increased use of the criminal law and greater severity in punishment. It considers two

opposing answers offered by political and legal theorists and then begins to develop a

participatory democratic framework for institutional reform.

Keywords Punishment � Citizen participation � Democracy � Restorative justice �
Criminal jury

Introduction

Is there a role for an active public in ratcheting down the tough-minded politics of crime

control in the United States and the United Kingdom? Political and legal theorists offer two

opposing answers. On the one hand are insulationists, such as Nicola Lacey, Philip Pettit,
and Franklin Zimring, who advocate removing certain criminal justice issues that impact

incarceration rates from public influence. They endorse penal policy boards that would take

issues such as the permissible size of the prison population and guidelines for appropriate

sentencing off the legislative agenda, thus providing insulation from public influence. A

contrasting conception comes from integrationists like John Braithwaite, Nils Christie, and
Howard Zehr, who see lay citizen involvement as an integral part of a framework that

fosters the right kind of criminal justice dialogue and essential for building a network of

support for non-punitive programs. They advocate criminal justice institutions that inte-

grate public participation so that citizens consider hard questions, face suffering human

beings, and share responsibility for outcomes.

This essay argues that the insulationist approach has practical and normative difficulties

that reveal advantages of the integrationist model. We need to rethink some core

A. W. Dzur (&)
Departments of Political Science and Philosophy, Bowling Green State University,
Bowling Green, OH, USA
e-mail: awdzur@bgsu.edu

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Crim Law and Philos (2012) 6:115–129
DOI 10.1007/s11572-012-9149-x