Penal Field Research Articles

Decarceration in Southern Europe: Notes on Climate Change in the Penal Field

AbstractAgainst the backdrop of the economic and political crises affecting Europe in the late 2000s and early 2010s, incarceration rates began to shrink in many European countries, ushering in a decarceration period that continues to this day—albeit with cross-border divergences. In fact, Europe was the world region with the greatest decline in incarceration rates in the 2010s. Evidently, this unexpected shift stands in stark contrast to the penal populism policies characterising penality in global north regions in the 1990s and 2000s, as well as to the mass incarceration path still followed by many global south jurisdictions in the 2020s. Spain is a suitable national case to examine this recent turn, since Spanish incarceration rates increased almost eightfold in just three decades, before an intriguing and steady decline began that is almost unparalleled in western Europe. This paper focuses on the Spanish case, exploring the background and proximate causes that have enabled the current decarceration scenario. In addition, it scrutinises if and to what extent the changes witnessed in the Spanish case reverberate across wider European regions. In so doing, the paper attempts to grasp the climate change impacting the penal field in many global north jurisdictions.

Epidemiological, clinical, and forensic approach to a series of defendants examined in criminal psychiatric expertise

Introduction The transgression of the law can be a deliberate act by a lucid adult, but it can also be the result of a deficiency in judgment and discernment due to lack of age or insanity. Psychiatric expertises are more and more solicited in the penal field with the objective of identifying the causal link between mental illness and the criminal act.ObjectivesThe objective of this work was to give an overview of the subjects expertised, the offences and the pathologies encountered through the report of a psychiatric expertise activity in criminal law.MethodsIt is a retrospective descriptive study carried out on the criminal psychiatric expertises made for a forensic act in the psychiatric department of Mahdia during the period from January 1, 2003 to March 30, 2022.Results In total, we collected 101 defendants. The average age of our study population was 35±12.07 years. The majority of our study sample was male (98%), from an urban area (50%). 46.6% had primary education and only 11.2% had higher education. The defendants were single in 57.8% of the cases, and almost half (45.7%) had no occupation. Two-thirds of the accused (61.2%) had experienced emotional deprivation at a young age. The problematic use of psychoactive substances was found in 10.3%, as well as alcohol consumption in 46.6%. Moreover, 39.7% of the patients had a personal psychiatric history and 19% had been incarcerated at least once. The forensic acts were mostly against people (62.9%) dominated by physical aggression (33.6%) followed by homicide or its attempt in 19% of the cases. The majority of patients were not related to their victims (62.1%). The nosographic diagnosis found was a personality disorder in 32.75% of cases, followed by schizophrenic disorders in 22.4% of cases.ConclusionsPsychiatric expertise is a useful, complex and noble clinical act. Determining the predictive factors of a possible acting out allows to specify the objectives of interventions aiming at limiting the acts of violence, hospitalizations and incarcerations of patients suffering from mental disorders.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Challenges justifying the necessary harmonization of economic and financial criminal laws in O.H.A.D.A. space

Some African countries have decided to create the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (O.H.A.D.A.) to build a common legal space to meet their economic and social needs. This organization results from their desire to standardize their legislation to find solutions to the persistent economic sluggishness generating endemic mass unemployment. Its primary purpose is to restore confidence to investors who, for a long time, have turned their backs on Africa because of the obsolescence, scattering, and extreme heterogeneity of its legislation of an economic nature. With this in mind, the Community body has introduced several uniform laws conducive to economic activity between Member States. That raises the question of security within this regional space. Appearing as a strategic weapon, the regional legislator has put legal means of protection on the civil level, which unfortunately proves to be insufficient. Because of this, recoursing to criminal law is necessary. However, we note that the member states of the O.H.A.D.A. consider the penal field their preserve. The corollary of this national character results in a need to move towards unifying the penal field within the framework of an organization of integration, which is O.H.A.D.A. That constitutes a problematic challenge regarding determining a penal policy in the regional space.

The Ghosts Inside: The Historic Struggle to Reclassify Prison Labor, 1967–1979

The 1970s saw incarcerated laborers engage in an unprecedented battle to secure recognition, rights, and protections. This article traces the rise of the Prisoners Union, the largest and most prominent organization of its sort, as it endeavored to elevate the standing of captive labor. Through qualitative analysis of archival materials, this work unpacks penal laborers’ classification struggles aimed at advancing status in the penal field and rejoining the ranks of the working class. Investigating this movement's successes and failures enhances empirical knowledge of prison organizing as well as theoretical understandings of classification struggles, and helps contextualize historic penological developments.

Collateral consequences of criminal records from the other side of the pond: How exceptional is American penal exceptionalism?

In this article, we highlight the existence and expansion of so-called ‘collateral consequences’ (CCs) of criminal records in Europe to challenge the prevalent view that these are features of the claimed ‘American exceptionalism’ within the penal field. First, we consider how CCs have been widely presented as a quintessential example of American penal exceptionalism within extant scholarship before problematising the adoption of such a framework from a European perspective. Second, we demystify the issue of CCs within Europe by highlighting the deleterious effects which CCs have on the lives of European people with a criminal record. Third, we consider precisely what can be regarded as ‘exceptional’ about CCs in the United States as compared to Europe by analysing key areas of possible differentiation. We conclude by cautioning against the view that European penality is necessarily – and always homogeneously and consistently – ‘progressive’ in relation to its treatment of criminal records and criminal record subjects. We also suggest that far greater attention and vigilance is required from criminologists and criminal justice scholars regarding the expansion and operation of CCs in Europe.

Conscience and Convenience: How Social Workers Pursue Rehabilitation in Chinese Community Corrections

The establishment of community corrections in China marks a restructuring of the Chinese penal field and a possibly differentiated arrangement of penal power. Social forces and community actors are now enabled and encouraged to participate in penal affairs and to share devolutionary penal power with the authoritarian state. Yet little research attention has been allotted to examine how these burgeoning social organizations, professional service providers, and community actors manage their participation in rehabilitative work and negotiate their rehabilitative aspirations with state ideologies and policy mandates as they work within Chinese community corrections (CCC). Drawing on observational data and in-depth interviews with social workers within CCC, we show the ways in which social workers actively create strategies to pursue their professional values of service and implement rehabilitative ideals and caring ethos while, at the same time, minimizing the risk of challenging state authority and jeopardizing penal policy priorities. Three devised approaches are presented, and their implications are discussed.

Epidemiological, clinical, and forensic approach to a series of defendants examined in criminal psychiatric expertise

IntroductionThe transgression of the law can be a deliberate act by a lucid adult, but it can also be the result of a deficiency in judgment and discernment due to lack of age or insanity. Psychiatric expertises are more and more solicited in the penal field with the objective of identifying the causal link between mental illness and the criminal act.ObjectivesThe objective of this work was to give an overview of the subjects expertised, the offences and the pathologies encountered through the report of a psychiatric expertise activity in criminal law.MethodsIt is a retrospective descriptive study carried out on the criminal psychiatric expertises made for a forensic act in the psychiatric department of Mahdia during the period from January 1, 2003 to March 30, 2022.ResultsIn total, we collected 101 defendants. The average age of our study population was 35±12.07 years. The majority of our study sample was male (98%), from an urban area (50%). 46.6% had primary education and only 11.2% had higher education.The defendants were single in 57.8% of the cases, and almost half (45.7%) had no occupation. Two-thirds of the accused (61.2%) had experienced emotional deprivation at a young age. The problematic use of psychoactive substances was found in 10.3%, as well as alcohol consumption in 46.6%. Moreover, 39.7% of the patients had a personal psychiatric history and 19% had been incarcerated at least once. The forensic acts were mostly against people (62.9%) dominated by physical aggression (33.6%) followed by homicide or its attempt in 19% of the cases. The majority of patients were not related to their victims (62.1%). The nosographic diagnosis found was a personality disorder in 32.75% of cases, followed by schizophrenic disorders in 22.4% of cases.ConclusionsPsychiatric expertise is a useful, complex and noble clinical act. Determining the predictive factors of a possible acting out allows to specify the objectives of interventions aiming at limiting the acts of violence, hospitalizations and incarcerations of patients suffering from mental disorders.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

The palimpsest of outdoor penal labour in California, 1915–2000

AbstractIn this article we examine the curious stability of outdoor penal labour in California in the 20th century against a shifting social and penal field. Analysing state archival data on prison highway and forestry camps between 1915 and 2000, we frame the persistence of these practices as evidence of a penal labour palimpsest. We demonstrate how the agency and interpretive innovation of penal administrators – as the architects and interpreters of this palimpsest – served as a stabilising mechanism akin to, but distinct from, existing theories of path dependence. Zooming out from the intricacies of the historical record, we position this case as revealing some of the limits of strict theories of path dependence and, instead, as offering a more dynamic understanding of the complex, intersecting and malleable ways in which history matters.

Twenty-first century political justice: Reflections on the blind spots of current debates on penality

This paper aims to examine the contours of current manifestations of political justice, in a time in which liberal democracy arrangements are more widespread than ever before. For these purposes, it begins by exploring international indices unveiling varying degrees of illiberal penal practices in global north jurisdictions. Subsequently, it scrutinises the Spanish penal field, in which outmoded political justice practices are intriguingly enduring and have been apparently on the rise over the last decade. In analysing the political catalysts of these Spanish cases, the paper sheds light on certain factors nurturing twenty-first century forms of political justice and enemy penology. Finally, the paper concludes by outlining a research agenda for seriously considering these ‘abnormal justice’ phenomena in current academic conversations on penality.

Beyond rhetoric: Emplotting the life course of criminal justice narratives

Understanding key trends within the penal field has become a core preoccupation of criminologists in recent decades. However, critical analyses of the emplotment of narratives, or how narratives themselves are constructed and move through the criminal justice system, can be overlooked, a gap that this article aims to address. Drawing on a range of case studies across the criminological literature, the article aims to build on this work by interrogating four key features of policy and practice narratives that have important implications for how we conceptualise, understand and employ narratives to understand policy and practice developments, namely that such narratives are (a) operating at multiple levels of analysis, (b) shaped by diverse and sometimes agonistic voices, (c) informed by vertical and horizontal influences and (d) fluid and dynamic, and as such can vary temporally and situationally. These features and their implications for understanding criminal justice policy and practice developments are explored next, illustrating that policy and practice can flow both into and from narratives.

The risk–gang nexus in Sweden: Penal layering and the uneven topography of penal change

This article maps the emergence of a risk–gang nexus in the Swedish correctional field. Using the concept of penal layering, the article analyses the configuration of risk-based practices to manage gang affiliates in the context of Swedish prison and probation services. By introducing the notion interludes of penal layering, this article stresses the synchronic/diachronic opposition in penal change processes and furthers ongoing discussions of the variegated, braided, and uneven patterns of penal change in and beyond Nordic penal institutions. Drawing on interviews with probation officers, prison staff, and other professionals working with gangs in Sweden, the study finds that new rules, practices, decisional hierarchies, and actors have been layered on top of or alongside existing institutional arrangements to manage gang affiliates. This penal layer enforces punitive conditions for incarcerated gang affiliates and creates tensions, agonism, and contradictions between the coexisting and multiple logics of rehabilitation, punishment, and risk in the penal field.

Beyond criminalization: Immigration and the challenges for criminology

This paper discusses the increasing importance of administrative punishment in the penal field, using the judicialization of immigration conflicts in Canada as an example. Based on documentary analysis and the results of fieldwork conducted at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada between 2007 and 2009, I will present some characteristics of the legal translation of conflicts in immigration law and the forms of punishment involved. I will argue that these differ substantially from those in criminal law. My ultimate goal is to question the idea of criminalization of immigration as a category capable of nuancing the complexity of administrative forms of social response. Instead, I suggest that we should understand the forms of punishment in administrative law as they are (police measures and administrative sanctions), rethinking their role in the penal field to better understand how these forms of penalisation may even supplement or superimpose traditional criminalisation processes.

A cartografia da repressão: uma análise do enfrentamento ao tráfico de drogas na cidade de Canoas

The following study seeks to demonstrate the main problems raised by the paradigm of Political Sociology in the penal field, namely in the sphere of the dysfunctionalities and the structural contradictions in the systems of penal persecution, to be revisited in Brazil in light of the very application of the current criminal legislation. To do so, we propose a critical reflection on prisons notorious for the crime of drug trafficking, before analyzing data obtained by means of observations and empirical studies carried out at the 2nd Police Station of the Metropolitan Region of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The data collected on the police’s activities points to a selectivity in criminal prosecution across different levels, to have invariably led to the individualization of certain punishable social groups.

Beyond the austerity-driven hypothesis: Political economic theses on penality and the recent prison population decline

In what might be called the ‘austerity-driven hypothesis’, a consistent strand of literature has sought to explain the prison downsizing witnessed in many jurisdictions of the global north over the past decade by referring to the financial crisis of the late 2000s to early 2010s and its effects in terms of public spending cuts. Since this economic phase is essentially over, whereas the (moderate) decarceration turn is still ongoing, there are good reasons to challenge this hypothesis. This article delves into the non-economic forces that are fostering a prison population decline that, 10 years on, is becoming the new ‘penal normal’. The article thereby aims to spark a dialogue not only with the scholarship exploring the prison downsizing but also with certain theoretical frameworks that have played a key role in examining the punitive turn era. Additionally, the article contributes to the conversation on the need to reframe materialist readings on penality in a ‘non-reductionist’ fashion. By revisiting heterodox theses and scrutinizing the impact of recent penal changes on traditional materialist accounts, the article joins the collective endeavour seeking to update political economic perspectives on punishment and the penal field.

The European committee for the prevention of torture and the gendered experience of imprisonment

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) is a supranational prison oversight body tasked with carrying out visits to places of detention across Europe. Prisons fall within the remit of the CPT, and much like prisons themselves, CPT prison visits tend to focus on the male experience of imprisonment. However, the experience of imprisonment is inherently gendered and, as such, the experiences, treatment and needs of cisgender men do not necessarily represent those of cisgender women and transgender people in prison. Therefore, it follows that a different approach is also required when it comes to prison monitoring activities carried out by the CPT. This paper introduces CPT standards and the international legal framework on gender and imprisonment. It reflects on analysis of three years of CPT reporting to explore how the CPT considers the gendered experience of imprisonment. To this end, the paper considers the potential impact of the gender composition of CPT delegations, as well as provides a descriptive content analysis of CPT reports to determine how the CPT accounts for gender-specific treatment and conditions in prison. This paper poses questions and provides suggestions around how gender can be made more central across all human rights monitoring bodies operating in the penal field, both internationally and domestically.

A transnacionalização da corrupção e a instrumentalização política do processo penal

O presente artigo problematiza o entrelaçamento das cruzadas contra a corrupção e a racionalidade neoliberal, e também os reflexos produzidos por essa dinâmica sobre o processo penal, sobretudo a sua utilização como instrumento político. Tal esforço teórico justifica-se em razão do que se verificou após a Operação Lava Jato, especialmente o uso de velhos e novos discursos punitivistas visando o recrudescimento do sistema de justiça criminal e a sua influência no cenário político-governamental. Nesse sentido, partindo da premissa de que a corrupção não pode ser reduzida mediante a supressão de direitos e garantias processuais, este escrito tem como objetivo demonstrar que as campanhas anticorrupção, nos moldes conforme disseminadas desde as últimas décadas do século passado, têm servido para alavancar o projeto neoliberal e, no caso brasileiro, para obstaculizar a democratização do campo processual penal. Para tanto, mediante uma revisão bibliográfica e documental, estruturado em quatro tópicos, apresentará uma genealogia da transnacionalização da corrupção, demonstrará o vínculo das campanhas anticorrupção com os intentos neoliberais, e esmiuçará o papel decisivo desempenhado pela cruzada contra a corrupção iniciada no Brasil em 2014 para o fortalecimento dos caracteres autoritários do processo penal, bem como para o seu uso político.

Probation practice, desistance and the penal field in Norway

While Scandinavia in general and Norway in particular have been the focus of much criminological interest, the work of probation has largely been overlooked in favour of prisons. This article seeks therefore to contribute to our knowledge of Norwegian penality and desistance by analysing how probation caseworkers describe their practice. Caseworkers have a relational, contextualised understanding of probation clients and the challenges they face. That being said, even in a Scandinavian welfare state, caseworkers see the process of reintegration and change as difficult, highlighting a lack of human and social capital and the challenges of navigating an increasingly complex and impersonal welfare apparatus.

Introduction: Le champ pénal et ses hybridations « en actes »

L’introduction de ce dossier retrace les principaux clivages, ambivalences et formes d’hybridations qui traversent et modèlent le champ pénal en Suisse et à l’échelle internationale. Le texte invite ainsi à interroger les rapports entre État pénal et État social, entre punition, réhabilitation et gestion des risques, ou encore entre prison et alternatives à l’incarcération : comment ces dimensions a priori distinctes se combinent-elles empiriquement, constituant de fait un « continuum sociopénal » ? La pertinence théorique du concept d’hybridation pour la compréhension du champ pénal, ainsi que les outils méthodologiques utiles à son exploration sont ensuite discutés. Enfin, sont détaillées trois formes d’hybridation, qui dialoguent avec les contributions composant ce dossier : la première forme se donne à voir lorsque deux institutions poursuivant des missions distinctes sont amenées à collaborer pour prendre en charge un même public ; la deuxième émerge lorsqu’au sein d’un même dispositif institutionnel deux paradigmes d’intervention se font concurrence et entremêlent leurs logiques d’action; la troisième forme d’hybridation peut s’observer lorsqu’on prend pour objet d’analyse les trajectoires des publics soumis au champ pénal, elles-mêmes marquées par la diversité des dispositifs de prise en charge (sociale, judiciaire ou encore thérapeutique).

Martyrdom, collective memory, and the contested penal authority of racial state institutions

Recent work in postcolonial and border criminologies has called for more extensive consideration of the complex temporal and geographic dimensions of penal authority. This article explicates new dimensions of the modern state’s penal authority by analyzing the execution and remembrance of Mewa Singh, a Sikh anticolonial activist convicted of killing Canadian immigration agent William C Hopkinson in Vancouver in 1914. Because Hopkinson was embedded in racial immigration enforcement against Indian populations as well as intelligence gathering about anticolonial activities, his death galvanized fields of penal authority that spanned the imperatives of the Canadian nation-state and the British Empire. Using archival and observational data, this article tracks how the significance of Mewa’s execution has been articulated through these penal fields as well as through recent practices of memorialization undertaken by local Sikh and Indian communities. Insofar as these mnemonic practices frame Mewa’s death as a sacrifice necessitated by state racism, my analysis illuminates the complex temporal parameters of penal fields of authority as well as the manner in which they are conditioned by racial borders and boundaries.

Historicizing Extramural Convict Labour: Trajectories and Transitions in Early Modern Europe

AbstractNew global histories of punishment are steadily decentring the history of punishment and convict labour, challenging traditional conceptions of a linear path towards a single penal modernity and the penitentiary as the telos of its history. Through an exploration of three strands of extramural convict labour emerging in Copenhagen (1558), Ulm (1561), and Almadén (1566), this interpretative essay argues that this challenge can be furthered by taking a view of Europe's own penal history from which the focus is less on origins and more on how the landscape of punishment evolved through a continuous and largely contingent process of assemblage. In this process, a few key elements – labour, displacement, pain, and confinement – were combined and mixed to different effects in specific contexts. Along with that approach comes the need to historicize the process by relating it to other practices of labour coercion, both within the penal field and outside it.