Punishment

• A functionalist perspective - Durkheim:

  • the function of punishment is to uphold social solidarity and reinforce shared values
  • 2 types of justice - retributive and restitutive
  • restitutive justice - aims to restore things to how they were before the offence.
• Marxism: capitalism and punishment - Thompson:

  • 18th century punishments such as hanging and transportation to the colonies for theft and poaching were a part of a 'rule of terror' by the aristocracy over the poor.
• Marxism: capitalism and punishment - Rusche and Kirchheimer:

  • each type of economy has its own penal system. Money fines are impossible without a money economy.
  • Under capitalism, imprisonment becomes the dominant form of punishment.
• Marxism: capitalism and punishment - Melossi and Pavarini:

  • imprisonment reflects capitalist relations of production:

  1. Capitalism puts a price on worker's time; so too prisoners 'do time' to 'pay' for their crime.
  2. Prison and capitalist factory both have a similar strict disciplinary style, involving subordination and loss of liberty.
• Marxism: capitalism and punishment - Garland:

  Era of mass incarceration?

  • USA and UK are moving into an era of mass incarceration
  • 100-120 per 100,000. 1972 - 200,000 inmates in federal and state prisons. 1970s - numbers rising rapidly
  • 1.5 million state and federal prisoners in prison like Rikers island, plus 700,000 in local jails
  • 5 million are under the supervision of the CJS = over 3% the population
• Marxism: capitalism and punishment - Garland:

  Era of mass incarceration?

  • over 3x the European rate of imprisonment, despite the rates of victimisation being the same as Europe
  • reasons for mass incarceration is the growing politicisation of crime control. 'penal welfarism' - idea that punishment should reintegrate offenders into society.
• Marxism: capitalism and punishment - Downes:

  Era of mass incarceration?

  • the US prison system soaks up about 30-40% of the unemployed, thereby making capitalism look more successful.
• Marxism: capitalism and punishment - Simon:

  Era of mass incarceration?

  • because drug use is so widespread, this has produced 'an almost limitless supply of arrestable and imprisonable offenders'
• Marxism: capitalism and punishment - Cohen:

  • Alternatives to prison:
  • the growth of community controls has simply cast the net of control over more people
  • increased range of sanctions available simply enables control to penetrate even deeper into society