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Thinking about punishments - Part 2 - Coggle Diagram
Thinking about punishments - Part 2
Sociologists agree that all societies need to impose control on their members to ensure stability - punishment is one way of doing this..What is the relationship between punishment and society?, what does punishment do ?, Why does its form vary over time?, Why do we change it over time ?
Punishment exists are a social phenomenon
Durkheim - an explanatory theory of punishment as a social fact (crime is part of society, without crime there is no laws created)
Weber - government has formalised punishment
Marx - penal policy articulates and reinforces state power
Foucault - the nature of institutional power and the genealogy of the modern prison
Traditional Societies - use Retributive justice (getting your own back). The collective conscience is so strong in these types of societies that when people offend, the reaction is swift and vengeful to repress the wrongdoer.
Modern Societies - Restitutive justice (restoring what is lost) crime damages the interdependence between individuals eg compensation, imprisonment etc eg the setencing of adrian bayley "Passion is the soul of punishment"
Rusche and Kirchheimer; Types of punishment evolve in response to the needs of the economy - Money - fines are impossible without a money economy, enslavement as punishment in slave economies.
Forms of Religious criminality in primitive societies
Forms of human criminality in modern societies
Weber: rationalisation of punishment
Power and Authority - Authority is power by consent in contrast to power which is exercised through coercion
Three types of legitimate authority
Traditional (unquestioned, royal family etc)
Charismatic (leader afforded authority)
Rational-legal authority (modern law and state, bureaucracy
Karl Marx - a Marxist framework provides an explanation for why offenders from work class are imprisoned and offenders from middle class/upper classes are not (example Jeffrey Epstein, was able to molest young girls for many years as in elite circles before being arrested.)
Laws advocating punishment always operate in the interests of the ruling class to maintain existing social order
Serious punishments predominantly reserved for the unemployed, the poor, the mentally ill, the addicted and those who lack social support
Indigenous communities over represented in CJS
The law is "an arena for class struggle" E.P Thompson
Foucault; Mid 1800's development of capillary power or micro practices of power - Prison as a control tool
Sovereign Power - period before the 19th century, inflicting punishment on the body as a means of asserting control such as public execution, chopping off hands
Disciplinary Power - emerged in the 19th century, seeks to govern not just the body but also the mind or "soul" it does so through surveillance - Panopticon style of prison
Disciplinary power is now dominant in prisons and psychiatric treatment, more controlled and monitored than ever.