The growth of government knowledge during Prohibition enabled punitive administration and investigations that challenged its assumptions.
The publication of a critical report is not evidence that its recommendations changed routine practice.
Avoid treating institutional development as inevitable movement in one direction; distinguish new capacity, competing uses, and realized outcomes.
Researcher synthesis grounded in attributed McGirr passages; partial-source review.
Idea
The growth of government knowledge during Prohibition enabled punitive administration and investigations that challenged its assumptions.
Why it matters
Avoid treating institutional development as inevitable movement in one direction; distinguish new capacity, competing uses, and realized outcomes.
Source reasoning
McGirr connects enforcement expansion to crime statistics and penal administration, then shows how the Wickersham Commission criticized policing abuses, challenged immigrant-criminality stereotypes, and identified economic insecurity. Many proposals received limited attention or implementation.
Boundary
The publication of a critical report is not evidence that its recommendations changed routine practice.
Connections
