Neoliberalism And Punishment

Exploring the expansion of the penal system in Spain during the first 40 years of democracy, this book puts forward the importance of studying punishment from a sociological perspective and examines the neoliberal penality thesis. Today, Spain has more police officers and more people in prison than 50 years ago and a tougher penal code than that which existed at Franco’s death; however, crime has not increased for three decades, while most of the hardening of the penal system has occurred after its stabilisation. Studying the development of penality in Spanish democracy, this book explores Loïc Wacquant’s proposal that the expansion of the penal system should be understood as a characteristic of neoliberalism. It examines the parallel and reciprocal development of three policies in relation to the gradual implementation of neoliberal ideas and highlights how the evolution of the labour market, social policies, and the penal system are linked to one another and to neoliberal ideas related to the sacralisation of the utilitarian individual and the role of the state. Advocating for a sociological study of state punishment and contributing to a better understanding of the implementation of neoliberal policies, Neoliberalism and Punishment will be of great interest to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, and politics.

"Exploring the expansion of the penal system in Spain during the first forty years of democracy, this book puts forward the importance of studying punishment from a sociological perspective and examines the neoliberal penalty thesis. Today, Spain has more police officers and more people in prison than fifty years ago, and a tougher penal code than that which existed at Franco's death; however, crime has not increased for three decades, while most of the hardening of the penal system has occurred after its stabilization. Studying the development of penality in Spanish democracy, this book explores Loïc Wacquant's proposal that the expansion of the penal system should be understood as a characteristic of neoliberalism. It examines the parallel and reciprocal development of three policies in relation to the gradual implementation of neoliberal ideas, and highlights how the evolution of the labour market, social policies, and the penal system are linked to one another, and to neoliberal ideas related to the sacralization of the utilitarian individual and the role of the state. Advocating for a sociological study of state punishment and contributing to a better understanding of the implementation of neoliberal policies, Neoliberalism and Punishment will be of great interest to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, and politics"--

This book explores the origins of the so-called 'punitive turn' in penal policy across Western nations over the past two decades. It demonstrates how the context of neoliberalism has informed penal policy-making and argues that it is ultimately neoliberalism which has led to the recent intensification of punishment.

The growth of mass incarceration in the United States eludes neat categorization as a product of the political Right. Liberals played important roles in both laying the foundation for and then participating in the conservative tough-on-crime movement that is largely credited with the rise of the prison state. But can progressive polities, with their benevolent intentions, nevertheless contribute to the expansion of mass incarceration? In Progressive Punishment, Judah Schept offers an ethnographic examination into that liberal discourses about therapeutic justice and rehabilitation can uphold the logic, practices, and institutions that comprise the carceral state. Schept examines how political leaders on the Left, despite being critical of mass incarceration, advocated for a "justice campus" that would have dramatically expanded the local criminal justice system. At the root of this proposal, Schept argues, is a confluence of neoliberal-style changes in the community that naturalized prison expansion as political common sense for a community negotiating deindustrialization, urban decline, and the devolution of social welfare. While the proposal gained momentum, local activists worked to disrupt the logic of expansion and instead offer alternatives to reduce community reliance on incarceration. A well-researched and well-narrated study, Progressive Punishment provides an important and novel perspective on the relationship between liberal politics, neoliberalism, and mass incarceration. -- from back cover.

The punitive turn of penal policy in the United States after the acme of the Civil Rights movement responds not to rising criminal insecurity but to the social insecurity spawned by the fragmentation of wage labor and the shakeup of the ethnoracial hierarchy. It partakes of a broader reconstruction of the state wedding restrictive “workfare” and expansive “prisonfare” under a philosophy of moral behaviorism. This paternalist program of penalization of poverty aims to curb the urban disorders wrought by economic deregulation and to impose precarious employment on the postindustrial proletariat. It also erects a garish theater of civic morality on whose stage political elites can orchestrate the public vituperation of deviant figures—the teenage “welfare mother,” the ghetto “street thug,” and the roaming “sex predator”—and close the legitimacy deficit they suffer when they discard the established government mission of social and economic protection. By bringing developments in welfare and criminal justice into a single analytic framework attentive to both the instrumental and communicative moments of public policy, Punishing the Poor shows that the prison is not a mere technical implement for law enforcement but a core political institution. And it reveals that the capitalist revolution from above called neoliberalism entails not the advent of “small government” but the building of an overgrown and intrusive penal state deeply injurious to the ideals of democratic citizenship. Visit the author’s website.

The aim of this paper is to explore prison's class and symbolic dimensions in the Neoliberal Era. Neoliberalism was approached as the empowerment of the market which leads to the dismantlement of the social welfare state and to the strengthening of the penal state for the marginalised populations. Also, it was analysed as the 'conduct of conduct' in the Foucauldian sense, as it was argued that prison is a tool of government, functioning for the management of the marginalised populations. An effort was undertaken to discuss the differences of the US, the 'carceral example', with the European Union countries. The class and symbolic dimensions of punishment were first approached from a historical and a theoretical perspective respectively, before attempting to discuss neoliberalism, aiming to show the maintenance of prison's main characteristics through time under capitalism. It was argued that the dismantlement of the welfare state brought to the fore the destabilisation of the labour market and the concurrent strategies of responsibilisation which led to the increased use of imprisonment. The result is the phenomenon of mass imprisonment, mainly affecting poor and marginalised populations and communities, leading to their further exclusion and social control. Furthermore, the relation of the industry with the penal policies was discussed, as part of the passage from welfare to 'workfare' and 'prisonfare'. Concerning the symbolic dimensions of prisons, it was argued that the dominant representations of the criminals should be explored under the scope of the demonisation strategies, which aim to legitimise the harsher penal policies and to naturalise the discourse on 'criminal classes'. Therefore, emotional attitudes are emphasised, as leading to the uncritical acceptance of mass imprisonment. On the other hand, the risk management strategies were discussed, which despite having rationalistic and apolitical objectives, disguise the responsibilisation strategies of the neoliberal era and the narrative of institutionalised insecurity. The analysis of the actuarial practises showed that the targeting of the population as a whole marks the transition from the disciplinary society to the control society. The objective of this analysis was to establish an account of neoliberalism and the phenomenon of mass imprisonment, contributing to the radical analyses on prison aiming to provide argumentation for the promotion of radical social action towards prison abolition.

From anti-immigration agendas that criminalise vulnerable populations, to the punishment of the poor and the governance of parenting, this timely book explores how diverse fields of social policy intersect more deeply than ever with crime control and, in so doing, deploy troubling strategies. The international context of this book is complemented by the inclusion of specific policy examples across the themes of work and welfare; borders and migration; family policy; homelessness and the reintegration of justice-involved persons. This book incites the reader to consider how we can reclaim the best of the ‘social’ in social policy for the twenty-first century.

Prison studies has experienced a period of great creativity in recent years, and this collection draws together some of the field's most exciting and innovative contemporary critical writers in order to engage directly with one of the most profound questions in penology - why prison? In addressing this question, the authors connect contemporary penological thought with an enquiry that has received the attention of some of the greatest thinkers on punishment in the past. Through critical exploration of the theories, policies and practices of imprisonment, the authors analyse why prison persists and why prisoner populations are rapidly rising in many countries. Collectively, the chapters provide not only a sophisticated diagnosis and critique of global hyper-incarceration but also suggest principles and strategies that could be adopted to radically reduce our reliance upon imprisonment.