Learning from Uncle Sam? Exploring U.S. Influences on British Crime Control Policy

This paper examines the idea of “policy transfer” in the arena of crime control. More specifically, it examines the influence of the United States on recent criminal justice and penal policy developments in Britain. Three policy areas are discussed: privatized corrections, “zero-tolerance” policing, and “three-strikes” sentencing. Changes in these areas are widely perceived as being strongly influenced by developments in the U.S., although there has yet to be a systematic empirical study of how and why these policy developments occurred. Drawing on a review of literature, this paper examines the plausibility of the idea of policy transfer and highlights distinct routes through which policy transfer may occur between jurisdictions. It uses Bennett's (1991) model of “policy convergence” as a framework for exploring how “emulation,”“elite-networking,”“harmonization,” and “penetration” might have been relevant to policy changes in these areas. Finally, the paper considers how the concept of policy transfer in criminal justice and penal policy might be further examined empirically.