Imprisonment and internment: Comparing penal facilities North and South

Recent references to the ‘warehouse prison’ in the United States and the prisión-depósito in Latin America seem to indicate that penal confinement in the western hemisphere has converged on a similar model. However, this article suggests otherwise. It contrasts penal facilities in North America and Latin America in terms of six interrelated aspects: regimentation; surveillance; isolation; supervision; accountability; and formalization. Quantitatively, control in North American penal facilities is assiduous (unceasing, persistent and intrusive), while in Latin America it is perfunctory (sporadic, indifferent and cursory). Qualitatively, North American penal facilities produce imprisonment (which enacts penal intervention through confinement), while in Latin America they produce internment (which enacts penal intervention through release). Closely entwined with this qualitative difference are distinct practices of judicial involvement in sentencing and penal supervision. Those practices, and the cultural and political factors that underpin them, represent an interesting starting point for the explanation of the contrasting nature of imprisonment and internment

Penal modernism: an American tragedy

This paper discusses Whitman’s analysis of penal modernism. While I am in agreement with the central claim that penal modernism has been ignored and caricatured, I argue here that Whitman’s account of the penal modernist theory of judging must be understood in the context of a wider reframing of the social functions of the criminal law in penal modernism. This is explored by considering the unusual connection that the novel An American Tragedy (1925) has to the history of American criminal law, and the light that this can shed on the question of the meaning of penal modernism

New Labour, New Legitimacy? The ‘making punishment work’ agenda and the limits of penal reform

In this paper I consider the thorny question of whether the policies and penal reforms undertaken by the New Labour government in the last ten years have made the penal system more legitimate. Penal legitimacy has always been important, but in a time when the massive growth in prisoner populations shows no signs of abating, questions of the validity of the penal institution itself become ever more pressing. To answer this question requires first a definition of what we mean by the term legitimacy. I understand penal legitimacy to exist when the application and distribution of the ways and means of dealing with wrongdoers successfully attain both political validity and a sense of moral rightfulness (Scott, 2006, 2007a). This dictates that there are both political and moral dimensions to considerations of an appropriate response to dealing with wrongdoers, and the current way of achieving this through punishments in the criminal justice system. For a number of liberal penologists penal legitimacy is intimately tied to prisons and the criminal justice system conforming to public opinion, meeting certain practitioner expectations, fulfilling given administrative goals and targets, or meeting certain ends such as crime reduction, public protection or the rehabilitation offenders (Sparks et al., 1996). By contrast, radical penal activists and [neo] abolitionists have looked beyond the criminal justice system when thinking about legitimacy, pointing to wider concerns about the moral and political limitations of the power to punish, ultimately raising concerns about who we punish, why, and even if we should punish at all (Fitzgerald & Sim, 1979; Hudson, 2003; Scott, 2006). In this paper I highlight the inherent limitations of recent penal reforms by ‘New Labour’ since 1997 and point tenuously towards new directions and alternative visions for thinking about responding to wrongdoers rooted in the principles of accountability, democracy, human rights, and social justice

La sociedad : artífice de nuestro difícil destino de ser "Los Otros"

"Nos es difícil aceptar que ocupamos un lugar desvalorizado en las clasificaciones sociales, nos cuesta\nentender que la sociedad temerosa y desmemoriada se convierta en artífice ignorante e inconsciente de\nnuestra estigmatización, marginalización, y discriminación como un OTRO que, una vez marcado, poco o\nnada podrá hacer en el marco de su desempeño personal, para mejorar esa calificación, que suele estar\narraigada en estereotipos, que no se ponen en cuestión.

Sentencing and penal practices : Is Scotland losing its distinctiveness?

This chapter discusses sentencing and penal practices in Scotland

The punitive turn in Spain. Is the welfare state able to resist it?

In recent years there is a tendency to carry out penal reforms in Spain very often, as it also happens in other countries. During its twenty years of existence, the Spanish penal code has already been modified more than 30 times, on an average of more than one penal reform by year. Most of them have increased punitiveness by widening the categories of crimes, raising the penalties, and making the penitentiary system less flexible, especially for some criminal offences, all leading to a very high prison population. Although there are no alarming crime figures in Spain and experts consider it appropriate to decrease punitive pressure in some areas, it seems that this could only happen for utilitarian reasons, within a context of economic crisis that makes it unsustainable to maintain such a high prison population. The investigation has shown that there are many processes and practices indicating that the law and order model is consolidating itself in the Spanish penal system, leading to a punitive turn. Nevertheless this process has a different intensity at each phase, being stronger at the legislative stage and softer in the penitentiary enforcement phase. One of the main conclusions is, therefore, that the designed instrument is ideal for measuring the degree of penetration of the model throughout the system. The most striking results of the research will be presented at the III Scientific Congress on the Law of The Philippines & Spain, and some proposals to resist the punitive turn will be made.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Justice Reform: Who\u27s Got the Power

As the US prison population continues to rise despite the significant decrease in crime rates, scholars and social activists are demanding comprehensive reforms to the penal system that disproportionately affects minorities and the poor and has become a significant burden on the taxpayers. This paper examines some of the processes that contributed to the rise of the modern day carceral state, such as the determinate sentencing reform and the proliferation of mandatory minimum sentencing. It also explores the unintended consequences of these penal developments and traces the reaction and subsequent resistance to these sentencing schemes from the judiciary, as well as other sources. Finally, this paper examines the dynamics of power between various actors in the struggle for meaningful reforms in the penal system and argues for a concerted action aimed at stimulating meaningful action from the legislature that has so far largely abstained from major efforts at reforming the criminal justice system

Mass incarceration: the juggernaut of American penal expansionism

A plethora of evidence confirms that America continues to lead the world in imprisonment. No serious commentator doubts mass incarceration is a major issue for the nation. The America penal industrial complex incarcerates close to a quarter of all the prisoners on the planet. The American rate of incarceration remains stubbornly locked at a substantially higher level than those of comparable parliamentary democracies. There is no doubt that America’s penal institutions contain some individuals who pose a substantial public risk. However, there is significant scope to limit incarceration for a range of offenders, including those convicted of drug offences. There is a recognition the decades-long ‘War on Drugs’ has ultimately been counterproductive. At the end of 2014, some six years into Obama’s presidency, the USA’s total incarcerated population included some 2,306,100 prisoners It is only now that the United States may be witnessing the end of an ill-starred forty year experiment with mass incarceration and that American penal expansionism has finally begun to ease. The overall picture is of a pause, and even a slight reverse, in the race to incarcerate.non

A sentencing exception? Changing sentencing policy in Scotland

This article reviews developments in penal policy and to sentencing reform in Scotland over the last decade. The devolved government was established in 1999 following the first elections to a Scottish Parliament. Despite being part of the United Kingdom, Scotland has long maintained its own legal system, an established church and education system, and a civic culture which valued 'community, public provision of welfare and mutual support' which has been considered to be distinctively Scottish. This article examines the changing character of sentencing policy to explore whether Scottish sentencing and penal policy remains relatively distinctive in international terms

Hearing on Child Molestation Legislation - April 10, 1981

SB 276, SB 277, SB 278, SB 586, SB 587, SB 588