Symbolic politics and penal populism: The long shadow of Willie Horton

There is increasing evidence that, in general terms, much transnational lesson-drawing in criminal justice has been at the symbolic rather than the substantive level. Much of what has been ‘transferred’ has been terminology or rhetoric rather than the technologies and techniques of crime control. That is not to imply that these transfers have been inconsequential, for ‘political rhetoric and official representations of crime and criminals have a symbolic significance and a practical efficacy that have real social consequences. Sometimes “talk” is “action”’ (Garland, 2001: 22). In this article we outline a particular case of lesson-drawing that has had, we argue, a dramatic impact on British penal policy. This case, the defeat of Michael Dukakis in the 1988 US Presidential election, has had a long-lasting impact on electoral politics in the USA but also, we suggest, in the more specific arena of the mediated politics of crime control in the UK.