Mapping ‘Punishment and Society’ : An attempt to understand penality in contemporary South Korea

Abstract

Historical research of penality, the sociology of punishment, or so-called the scholarship of ‘Punishment and Society’ are reletively new. Nonetheless, research in this discipline has been remarkably successful for the recent three decades. Although a few scholars have pointed out the relavance/importance of the socio-historical perspective and social theories in explaining punishment in South Korea, existing literature on punishment conducted from this perspective is rarely found in this country. This article serves two purposes: First, it illustrates and discusses various case studies that offer an important account of penality of a particular society. This mapping of varying forms and characteristics of penality provides an opportunity to intellectually visualise this nature of research specifically, thereby drawing implications for the applicability of ‘Punishment and Society’ in South Korean contexts. Within this comprehensive map of penality, the contemporary SK penality can be located and understood more distinctly from a comparative perspective, and; Second, this article briefly summarises the concept of penal populism and specific features around penal populism in SK, as one of the most clearly pronounced forces that constitutes the contemporary penality in this country.