RUNNING HEAD: AGENDA SETTING

Agenda Setting

Robert De Witt
Empire State College
School for Graduate Studies
Warzala
October, 2016

AGENDA SETTING

Mass incarceration is the most significant domestic threat

to the fabric of our democracy. The reason for such high
incarceration rates is not serious crimes but misguided policies
such as mandatory minimums, three-strikes laws and reductions in
the availability of parole and other early release mechanisms.
Through targeted advocacy, strengthening leadership and
membership support, JustLeadershipUSA believes a decarcerated
America is possible. [Emphasis added]
Source: JustleadershipUSA (JLUSA) (2016).
Introduction
Much attention has been placed on incarceration rates in the United States of America in
recent years. A recent report released by the Sentencing Project (2013) revealed that the United
States has the largest criminal justice system in the world, with totals reaching 7 million people
under one type of correctional control or another as of 2011, with some 2.2 million of those
being held in federal and state prisons, and local jails (The Sentencing Project, 2013, pg. 1). At
the local level, in New York State, for example, the number of individuals held in jails and
prisons exploded, with New York State adding 46, 000 beds to the prison system between 1981
and 2007, at a total cost of some $4.5 billion dollars (Kaplan, 2007, pg. 3). However, these
numbers pale in comparison when the window of examination is broadened to 1972, when there
were only 12, 000 inmates in the New York state prison system, and then to its virtual explosion
of 63, 000 inmates by 1992 (Feldman, (1993), pg. 561).
Presently, it is well accepted that the United States has the highest rates of incarceration
of any civilized nation in the world (The Sentencing Project, (2013), pg. 1). The foregoing facts
have led to a burgeoning movement towards the decarceration of America, with advocates for
prison reform lobbying both national and local government leaders to move to reduce the

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numbers of citizens incarcerated in our countries jails and prisons and to reform outdated
criminal justice policies.
One particular organization, JustleadershipUSA (JLUSA) (2016), a national non-profit
organization founded and led by a formerly incarcerated person, Mr. Glen E. Martin, and
headquartered in New York City, has maneuvered itself into the forefront of this movement with
calls for criminal justice policy reform at both the national and state levels, with a stated goal of
reducing the countries correctional population by half by 2030, while reducing crime at the same
time (JustLeadershipUSA (2016)). Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, civil
rights advocate, and member of the JLUSA advisory board, said of JustLeadershipUSA, I
believe that the launching of JustLeadershipUSA will be viewed, one day, by historians and
advocates alike as a true game changer: the moment in the emerging movement when formerly
incarcerated people finally had a chance to be heard, to organize, and to influence policy in
major ways even though many of them still lacked the right to vote (JustLeadershipUSA
(2016)).
From Social Condition to Social Problem
Key to JLUSAs success in becoming a key player in the efforts to reduce our countries
incarceration rates by half by 2030, while reducing crime, and influencing positive criminal
justice reforms, was its ability to place each of these issues on the political agenda. Agenda
setting is a key element to bringing about policy change, defined as the process by which
problems and alternative solutions gain or lose public and elite attention (Birkland, (2011), pg.
169).
The eventual placement of issues of mass incarceration on the political agenda was first
made possible by the reframing of the phenomena of mass incarceration from a social condition

AGENDA SETTING

that little, if anything, could be done about, to a social problem, with possible solutions. This
transformation in public thought is generally brought about by something called social
construction, which basically involves the method by which society and its competing factions
structure and relate narratives of a problem and its development (Birkland, (2011), pg. 188).
The reframing of the phenomena of mass incarceration from a social condition to a social
problem in the United States has been demonstrated by a number of indicators: mass
incarceration and racially disproportionate incarceration rates are now seen as a major problem
needing a solution by many foundations, major social organizations, and the United States
Congress; the Senator Jim Webb, a former Republican turned Democrat, from Virginia, formed a
subcommittee to study the disproportionate impact of incarceration; the recession that took place
in 2008 caused state legislatures to begin to reduce correctional budgets; academic and trade
literature on the issue of mass incarceration has increased dramatically; and the reduction of state
prison populations for the first time since 1972 (Simon, J. (2012), pg. 25).
As Birkland (2011) points out: a group that can create and promote the most effective
depiction of an issue has an advantage in the battle over what, if anything, will be done about a
problem (pg. 188). JLUSA demonstrated the effectiveness of that approach by defining mass
incarceration as: the most significant threat to the fabric of our democracy, and further, by
attributing its cause(s) to: not serious crimes but misguided policies, and finally offering a
solution: targeted advocacy, strengthening leadership, and membership support
(JustLeadershipUSA (2016)).
In its continued efforts to build support for its cause, JLUSA has developed a powerful
consortium of board members, advisory board members, comprised of college professors,
business professionals, lawyers, and prestigious foundation partners, such as Louis and Anne

AGENDA SETTING

Abrons Foundation. Inc., the Ford Foundation, the David Rockefeller Fund, and the Tow
Foundation, to name a few (JustLeadershipUSA (2016)).
JLUSAs collaboration with its partner agencies and foundations is a clear example of an
organization with less advantaged interests seeking policy change utilizing an advocacy
coalition to achieve its mission (Birkland (2011), pg. 184). As Birkland (2011) points out, a
coalition of groups that are formed resultant to mutually shared beliefs in regards to certain
issues or problems, not necessarily agreeing on all points, but instead coalescing more so on
peripheral aspects of their beliefs, can and will garner considerable more attention from policy
actors, while concomitantly greatly improving their bases access to the agenda floor, thereby
evening the playing field with the powerful elites (pp. 184-85).
JLUSA work to accomplish its mission through advocacy campaigns at the local, state,
and federal levels, with leadership trainings, where the formerly incarcerated are retrained to
become advocates for criminal justice reform and effective leaders, and finally by its members
activities to build support and raise awareness through activism and advocacy
(JustLeadershipUSA (2016)). However, JLUSA and other such groups, working singularly or in
coalition, cannot rely solely on their ability to skillfully articulate the problem and possible
solutions, but instead must be constantly aware that other groups may be more powerful than
they in influencing the outcomes of policy discussions.
Power and Policy
Unfortunately for most groups working to effect policy change, talk is cheap. A particular
group may present the clearest arguments imaginable in support of their cause, spouting all sorts
of accurate technical information, statistics and academic jargon, and yet still be unable to
compete with some more powerful groups in getting their issues placed on the agenda because

AGENDA SETTING

other groups possess more powerful social and political connections, this is what is known as the
elite model of policy making, where the few control the many policy decisions that concern the
many (Birkland (2011), pg. 174). The elite model has as its basic premise that all of our
institutions contain an ordered system of power, a power structure that is an integral part of its
stratification, with benefits and privileges being unequally distributed among people and groups
(Barach & Baratz (1975), pg. 900). Although this elite model of policy making has been a
constant presence in discussions of policy development for years, ideas concerning the sources
and use of power have continued to develop over the years and taken an even more sophisticated
adaptation, expanding from our initial conception of power, the power of government bodies and
powerful groups to force individuals to comply with laws and regulations, willfully or not, to a
more complex view of power, one where there are multiple types or faces of power, the power
of one person to coerce another being one face of power, while the other face of power is the
ability to stop another from doing what they want to do, a blocking power (Birkland (2011),
pg. 174-75; Barach & Baratz (1962) ).
Tactics
Birkland (2011) describes several methods, or tactics that can be applied to overcoming a
power deficit and placing a problem on the political agenda, one relates to the streams
metaphor for agenda change (pg.178). This method is a way for less advantaged groups to have
their issues reach the political agenda and involves the coupling of two or more streams, of the
political, policy, or problem streams (Birkland (2011), pg. 178). Alterations in the political
stream, such as electoral change ,can birth reform movements where groups that were
previously without political power suddenly have a voice to discuss their issues, changes in
perception of a given problem can also be the catalyst for policy change, and finally, changes in

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the policy stream, such as in increased call for less money to be spent on crime and corrections,
can all additionally cause an opening in the window of opportunity for getting issue placed on
the agenda and moving towards policy development or change (Birkland, (2011), pg. 178).
Other methods by which problems are brought to the forefront of public attention include
indicators and focusing events, this generally refers to changes in the statistics of a problem and
sudden rare events that draw intense attention due to their size or the danger that they reveal
(Birkland, (2011), pg. 180).
Statistical changes concerning a problem are what are known as changes in indicators,
but statistical figures alone may not be enough to accomplish the goal of bringing attention to a
perceived problem, the numbers, or changes in indicators must be processed and made public in
order for them to be effective in bringing about the desired policy changes (Birkland, (2011), pg.
179). A Focusing event can also bring about intense public attention to a perceived problem, a
focusing event can draw the attention of the government, powerful groups, and the media, to pay
attention (Birkland, (2011), pg. 180).
A prime example of the power of a focusing event bringing attention to an issue would be
what happened to the founder of JLUSA, Glenn E. Martin, following his invitation to a
Whitehouse dinner in 2015. Mr. Martin is noted as one of the leading advocates for prison reform
and breaking down the barriers for former inmates, having served time for a robbery conviction
himself, Mr. Martin founded and now heads JLUSA. Although Mr. Martin was invited to the
Whitehouse dinner with a select group of reform advocates, academic scholars, elected officials,
and law enforcement representatives, he was subsequently pulled aside and detained by the
Secret Service and treated as a security risk, and issued a pink badge labeled needs security
escort (Kates (2015); Nelson & Fields (2015)). Mr. Martin subsequently wrote an open-letter to

AGENDA SETTING

President Obama, explaining in the letter that his experience at the White House was as
insulting as it was indicative of the broader problem, Mr. Martin received a letter from president
Obama six weeks later stating his commitment to helping the formerly incarcerated with their
reentry efforts, Mr. Martin was later invited back to the white House to meet the President and to
speak on a panel discussion focusing on criminal justice reform (Nelson & Fields (2015);
JustLeadershipUSA (2016)). The amount of attention that this occurrence garnered in the media
as well as in the criminal justice field undoubtedly served to bring attention to Mr. Martins
efforts and assisted in raising the issue of mass incarceration and criminal justice reform higher
on the political agenda.
Mr. Martins success in getting JLUSAs issues raised onto the national political agenda
are an example of the changing tides of American politics. Historically, conservatives held the
belief that more prison beds equaled less crime, forming the bases of republican politics for
years, now the right-wing has changed its position towards these issues and are looking at
prisons as being expensive, inefficient and in need of reform (Dagan & Teles (2012).) This fact
highlights another of the reasons that issues reach the political agenda, while some may not:
issues reach the political agenda as a result of the bias (tendencies of the political system) that
allows them to, and other issues will never reach the political agenda because they are not fit for
political consideration, due to the bias of the system, largely due to the power of those that are
in control (Birkland, (2011), pg. 176).

AGENDA SETTING

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Sharpe Publishers.
Cochran, Charles L. & Eloise F. Malone (2010). Public Policy: Perspectives and Choice (5th Ed.).
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