The Future of Texas’ Notoriously Tough Stance on Imprisonment and Execution

First in size of prison population. First in prison construction. First in for-profit imprisonment. First in supermax lockdown. And, most notoriously, first in executions. By almost any measure, Texas reigns supreme in the punishment business.

The state’s uniquely harsh, racialized, and profit-driven style of punishment, developed on slavery’s frontier, became a template for the nation in a post–civil rights era. And the state today remains for many a bellwether—not only in the realm of incarceration and penal policy, but also in the larger worlds of politics, demographic change, and culture.

But there are signs that twilight may be upon the “Texas tough” ethos. What could these signs portend for the Lone Star State and its outsized influence on criminal justice policy in the United States?

At a recent event, Soros Justice Fellow Robert Perkinson and other experts discussed the life and times of America’s roughest, largest penal system from infancy to empire. Listen above.