Penal Practice Research Articles

The Powers That Punish: Prison and Politics in the Era of the "Big House," 1920-1955

In a pathbreaking study of a major state prison, Michigan's Jackson State Penitentiary during the middle years of this century, Charles Bright addresses several aspects of the history and theory of punishment. The study is an institutional history of an American penitentiary, concerned with how a carceral regime was organized and maintained, how prisoners were treated and involved in the creation of a regime of order and how penal practices were explained and defended in public. In addition, it is a meditation upon punishment in modern society and a critical engagement with prevailing theories of punishment coming out of liberal, Marxist and post structuralist traditions. Deploying theory critically in a historic narrative, it applies new, relational theories of power to political institutions and practices. Finally, in studying the history of the Jackson prison, Bright provides a rich account, full of villains and a few heroes, of state politics in Michigan during a period of rapid transition between the 1920s to the 1950s.The book will be of direct relevance to criminologists and scholars of punishment, and to historians concerned with the history of punishment and prisons in the United States. It will also be useful to political scientists and historians concerned with exploring new approaches to the study of power and with the transformation of state politics in the 1930s and 1940s. Finally Bright tells a story which will fascinate students of modern Michigan history.Charles Bright is a historian and Lecturer at the Residential College of the University of Michigan.

Crimes et châtiments. L'œil du médecin légiste

Michel Porret : Crime and punishment. The eye of the forensic pathologist. All over Europe, in the 18th century, legal investigation and forensic practice rationalised the penal regime and reinforced the judge's certainty. Despite medicolegal doctrine dating from the Renaissance at least, forensic medicine was often empirical and enabled an 'objective' qualification of the crime using criteria drawn from the 'natural reality' of violent or sexual crime. As seen in Genevan penal practice, which was praised for its modernity by the Encyclopédie (article GENEVA), the Enlightenment forensic pathologist could limit the arbitrary tendencies of the judges thanks to an examination which established the pathological 'circumstances3 of a murder or rape. The forensic pathology of the Enlightenment, still little known, brought to penal practice of the time the 'proportion' between crime and punishment demanded by Beccaria in order to bring about judicial modernity and the moderation of punishment.

Qualities of Mercy: Justice, Punishment, and Discretion

Foreword / Douglas Hay Acknowledgments Introduction / Carolyn Strange 1. Civilized People Don't Want to See That Sort of Thing: The Decline of Physical Punishment in London, 1760-1840 / Greg T. Smith 2. In Place of Death: Transportation, Penal Practices, and the English State, 1770-1830 / Simon Devereaux 3. 'Harshness and Forbearance': The Politics of Pardons and the Upper Canada Rebellion / Barry Wright 4. Savage Mercy: Native Culture and the Modification of Capital Punishment in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia / Tina Loo 5. Discretionary Justice: Political Culture and the Death Penalty in New South Wales and Ontario, 1890-1920 / Carolyn Strange Punishment in Late-Twentieth-Century Canada: An Afterword / Anthony N. Doob

The Punitive Society: Penology, Criminology and the History of the Present

This paper, which is a reworked version of the inaugural lecture of the Chair of Penology delivered on 24 May 1995 at the University of Edinburgh, sets out an account ofthe relationship between penology and criminology which reverses the conventional understanding ofthe relationship between these two disciplines. Instead ofviewing penology as an applied sub-discipline of criminology, it is argued that criminological ideas should be viewed as part of the object ofstudy of penological research, insofar as criminology comes to function within penal practices. This conception of penology is illustrated by an analytical account of contemporary penal policies and the role of criminological ideas within them. The analysis suggests that the character of recent crime control policy is not so much punitive as ambivalent. The social fact of high crime rates, together with the increasingly recognised limits of state action as a means of governing crime, have created a new predicament for policy makers and for politicians. The article identifies adaptive strategies and strategies of denial, as well as the different criminologies that accompany them, and outlines a Durkheimian account ofsocial development that situates these developments sociologically.

Sellam gestare: Saddle-Bearing Punishments and the Case of Rhiannon

Sellam gestare: Saddle-Bearing Punishments and the Case of Rhiannon. In a variety of medieval sources from across Germanic Europe there are references to a bizarre and little-known penal practice in which the wrongdoer wore or carried a horse's saddle. This article gathers these examples together and suggests that the strange punishment imposed upon the character Rhiannon in the Middle Welsh tale Pwyll Prince of Dyfed may owe as much to attested historical practice as to her presumed identity with the British horse-goddess Rigantona. While her divine origin may have influenced the author's choice of penance, its form bears a striking resemblance to the Continental cases. Given the dates and spread of this practice, which are covered at length in this article, it seems plausible that the Welsh author could have known about it and have deliberately included it in his tale to emphasize both the depth of Rhiannon's degradation and the extent to which she was regarded as a threat to the social order.

Rehabilitation in German Prisons

Abstract Since 1976, with the passage of the Federal Prison Act, rehabilitation has been a major philosophical principle in German penal law and correctional practice. The purpose of this article is to describe three prominent features that promote rehabilitation in German prisons: unique environmental conditions, extensive work and training programs, and frequent use of community reintegration programs. The findings for this article were derived from three sources of information: informal interviews with German prison officials and university criminologists, a review of extant literature on German corrections, and most important, from visits to four maximum security correctional institutions in western Germany during the period of September 1993 through June 1994.

A Perspective on China's New Prison Law

China's new prison code is contrasted to primary legislation controlling adult institutions. It is contended that this law, which is an amalgam of mainland penal philosophy and practice with Western correctional concepts, has the potential to allow the Chinese rehabilitative ideal to be finally realized.

Holdninger Til Virkemidler i Narkotikapolitikken i Norge

In a public survey conducted in the Spring of 1993, a randomly selected sample were asked about their attitudes toward counter measures in drug policy. According to the survey there is general support for both preventive, therapeutic and repressive actions. Also more controversial measures such as electronic room bugging, which the Norwegian Parliament rejected, has public support. However, the respondents seem to give priority to preventive actions, such as working with young people, in preference to society's main answer so far: sharper punishment. In public discussion about the level of punishment, it seems to be accepted as a premise that the penal practice has its correlate in public opinion, which supports sharper punishment. In response to a general question about the penalties for drug offences, a clear majority of the respondents said they are “too lenient”. When specifying the crimes, however, the respondents were not more repressive than the courts. This paradox indicates that the correspondence between public attitudes and legal sanctions, thought to be of almost causal nature, has to be reconsidered.

Le vieillissement de la population pénitentiaire du Québec

A study of Québec penitentiary population trends from 1972 to 1991 (for sentences of 2 years and more), shows a marked ageing in individuals being admitted. After having presented the most pertinent data concerning age at admission, the remaining analysis focuses on some possible explanations for the incurred transformations: (a) the demographic hypothesis, (b) the relative reduction in young adults being admitted, and (c) the increase in older individuals. Although we should not ignore possible changes in delinquent behaviour, it would seem that the incurred transformations are foremost the result of societal reactions and modifications brought to penal policies and practices. Where the changes in the ratios of imprisonment and in the structure of the penitentiary population are concerned, the amendments to legislation, the decisions of those charged with devising the penal practices and those who have to apply them, such as the judges, must be considered as having as much importance as the alleged transformation of «criminality ».

The Irish psyche imprisoned

Some of the important historical influences on the present prison system in the Republic of Ireland are described. The pivotal role of the introduction of the penitentiary system at Mountjoy in 1850 is stressed, both because it represents a momentous break with former cruel and arbitrary modes of State punishment and because it still provides the main conceptual framework of the Irish system. The influential international role in penal theory and practice of Crofton’s progressive stages system is alsp discussed, as is Ireland’s literary contribution to the area. Finally, the present state of the penal system, particularly with respect to imprisonment, is critically analysed.

No gauntlet for gentlemen : Officers' privileges in Russian military law, 1716-1855

John Keep, No gauntlet for gentlemen: officers' privileges in Russian military law, 1716-1855. The article examines the following questions: I. Why this topic, contrary to appearances, is historically significant; 2. Sources - and revealing silences; 3. The system as established by Peler I, and compared to other systems; 4. The soslovie structure and its reflection in Russian military law; Catherine II's grant of corporate rights and the policies of her successors; 5. "Class justice" or two parallel institutional systems as regards a) malfeasance/abuse of authority by officers, b) procedural antl other advantages enjoyed by officer offenders, c) penal practice affecting officers and other ranks; 6. Attitudes among dvoriane to their privileges; stu i ings of legal consciousness; 7. Conclusions: the major defects are systemic and cultural rather than estate-related.

Cartesian Penology

Writing on punishment can be a punishing experience. We face two kinds of problems, each threatening to make penal reflection a futile exercise. Primarily, there is a body of research and literature which might be called hyper-critical; this research points to the weaknesses of all theories of punishment but fails to replace them by an adequate theory, either because it cannot solve the problems which it raises or because it does not want to, punishment being seen as a concept that is so fraught with difficulties of all kinds that it ought to be altogether rejected. There is, on the other hand, a second trend in the literature, which is more positive and which offers a new theory of punishment. However, what is gained at the level of theory is lost at the level of application: not only is current penal practice unrelated to the proposed ideal, but its proponents do not see at present how we should proceed in adjusting practice to achieve this ideal.

A Comparison of Punishment Systems in Denmark and the United States

The Danish prison system is recognized worldwide as a model incorporating the most progressive principles of punishment. This article is the result of the author's research in Denmark undertaken to clarify the foundations of Danish penal philosophies. Findings suggest that penal practices are the outcome of a complex interaction of social and criminological theories. Formulated in an atmosphere that minimizes the emotionalism and politicization of crime, Danish crime control policies represent a pragmatic and reasoned approach to dealing with criminal offenders. Prison conditions reflect the social and political attitudes regarding the causes of crime and the treatment of marginal citizens.

Book Review: Journey From the Gallows: Historical Evolution of the Penal Philosophies and Practices in the Nation's Capital

Book Review: Journey From the Gallows: Historical Evolution of the Penal Philosophies and Practices in the Nation's Capital

Adopting and adapting criminological ideas

Criminologists at their international gatherings tend to emphasise the common aspects of their discipline. For example, the programme for a recent international criminology conference claims that '[i]n many respects criminology and its affiliated sciences know more about the causation of crime and delinquency than 30 years ago' (Hamburg Congress 1988: 2). The implicit idea is of a normal science working internationally towards the solution of consensually recognised, well-defined problems. Conventional wisdom readily concedes that new theoretical schools (the cynical would say, fashions) disturb this linear development by the posing of new questions and the undermining of old truths, but the notion of international theoretical development remains. However, ideas, criminological or other, do not exist only in the rarefied atmosphere of international conferences or in internationally recognised, authoritative, scientific texts. Ideas are incorporated into national criminologies and applied in specific penal practices (Pick 1986). This process of incorporation is not a simple unidirectional exercise. As this paper will demonstrate by way of a review of the emergence of academic criminology in South Africa, the initial ideas may be transformed in such a way that they are incorporated in a discourse which aims to have an impact on society different from or even opposite to that intended by their original authors (Garland 1985). What in the South African context I have chosen to call academic criminology can best be located both by outlining briefly for the purpose of contrast the criminology that preceded it and by sketching the broader social context of its emergence.

Unemployment and Racial Differences in Imprisonment

Conventional wisdom about the criminal justice system suggests that extralegal factors such as race or employment status should not affect sentencing outcomes. In this paper we examine an alternative model of the relationship between imprisonment and unemployment and race. The model suggests that penal practices are shaped by the labor market conditions of a system of production and that prisons, as part of a larger set of institutions providing support for economically-dependent populations, help to regulate the most superfluous group of workers in the industrial economy of the Northern states of the United States—unemployed black workers who comprise a large fraction of the pool of “reserve” workers necessary for price stability and economic expansion. We find support for the structural model that links black imprisonment (and Northern imprisonment in general) to manufacturing output and black unemployment.

Penal Theories and Practices: A Review of Walker's "Punishment, Danger and Stigma: The Morality of Criminal Justice" and Christie's "Limits to Pain"

Penal Theories and Practices: A Review of Walker's "Punishment, Danger and Stigma: The Morality of Criminal Justice" and Christie's "Limits to Pain"

Corporal Punishment and Penal Policy: Notes on the Continued Use of Corporal Punishment with Reference to South Africa

Before the invention of the prison in Europe and North America, the whip had been a ubiquitous instrument of penal practice. Together with other physical punishment and tortures, it gave formal expression to the punitive obsessions of medieval criminal justice. Although these punishments have fallen into disuse in most of the modern world, the philosophy of retribution continues to have popular appeal. Politicians and editors of popular newspapers, who are aware of the intensity of public feeling on law and order issues, frequently capitalize on these feelings by calling for more severe penal measures such as the death penalty, mandatory prison sentences and corporal punishment. For example, in Britain, before winning the 1979 general election the Conservative Party was reported to have been planning a referendum on the reintroduction of corporal punishment for young offenders. But in Britain, as in other liberal democracies, election promises to introduce tougher penal measures are not always fulfilled. Law and order issues

New Prisons for Old Gaols: Scottish Penal Reform 1835–1842

AbstractBy 1835 it was very widely believed by penal theorists and administrators that Scottish prisons had remained customary, idiosyncratic, unregulated anachronisms in the era of the Howardian and Separate Systems of penitential discipline. The State consequently appointed an Inspector who directed a very skilful attack against these prisons on ideological grounds. This attack was successful, and resulted in a penal revolution in Scotland. Thus there were established wholly new mechanisms of government which operated to impose both the Howardian and Separate Systems upon Scottish Prisons, and to annihilate all remnants of penal practice which did not conform with these ideologies.

Gaol Delivery?: Proposed Changes in Penal Practice for the 1980s

Gaol Delivery?: Proposed Changes in Penal Practice for the 1980s