The United States is at a turning point in the history of corrections. Suddenly and surprisingly, the era of mass incarceration ended around 2010. Since that time, prison populations, public punitiveness, and get-tough rhetoric have declined. A challenging question remains, however: Now what? Doing more of the same is foolish but likely. Prison reform is inhibited by the twin realities that states have limited budgets and have existing prisons that are rarely shuttered. New thinking is needed to move beyond these restrictions. One guide for a cognitive shift is Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now in which he argues that sustained improvement in human well-being in the United States and across the globe is due to the Enlightenment principles of reason, science, humanism, and progress. In this context, an “enlightened corrections” is possible in which policies and practices are evaluated by the four ideals articulated by Pinker. As one example, mass imprisonment is shown to be irrational, unscientific, inhumane, and bereft of a future. By contrast, more promising policies seek to nourish offenders by offering redemption and by using community supervision to build quality relationships that provide a means for targeting risk factors for intervention.

中文翻译：

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美国例外论的终结：开明的修正

美国正处于矫正历史的转折点。突然间，令人惊讶的是，大规模监禁的时代在 2010 年左右结束了。从那时起，监狱人口、公共惩罚和强硬言论都有所下降。然而，一个具有挑战性的问题仍然存在：现在怎么办？做更多相同的事情是愚蠢的，但很有可能。监狱改革受到国家预算有限和现有监狱很少关闭的双重现实的阻碍。需要新的思维来超越这些限制。认知转变的指南之一是史蒂文·平克 (Steven Pinker) 的《现在的启蒙》( Enlightenment Now )他在其中认为，美国和全球人类福祉的持续改善归功于理性、科学、人文主义和进步的启蒙原则。在这种情况下，“开明的纠正”是可能的，其中政策和实践由平克阐述的四个理想来评估。举个例子，大规模监禁被证明是不合理的、不科学的、不人道的，并且剥夺了未来。相比之下，更有希望的政策寻求通过提供救赎和使用社区监督建立优质关系来滋养罪犯，这些关系为针对风险因素进行干预提供了一种手段。