Questioning Punishment [Hardcover]

This book questions punishment as concept, social phenomenon and contemporary practice. It unpacks punishments nature and the assumptions that underpin it, examines its targets, objectives and implications, and aims to unsettle the idea that there is something common-sensical, necessary and?unavoidable about punitive justice.

Introduction  1.What Is Punishment?  2.Who Are the Targets and the Subjects of Punishment?  3.How Do We Punish and How Does It Feel?  4.When and Where Does Punishment Unfold?  5.Why Do We Punish?  6.So What? The Pathology of Punishment and the Promise of Justice

This book questions punishment as concept, social phenomenon and contemporary practice. It unpacks punishments nature and the assumptions that underpin it, examines its targets, objectives and implications, locates punishment and punitivity within their social contexts, and aims to unsettle the idea that there is something common-sensical, necessary and unavoidable about punitive justice.

Questioning Punishment develops its argument through an innovative structure organised around five central questions: what punishment is; who punishments targets and subjects are; how punishment is perpetuated and experienced; when and where punishment unfolds and why we punish. It ends by considering the implications of this enquiry to understandings of punishment and broader pursuits of justice.

This book is essential reading for all those engaged with the sociology of punishment and prisons, criminal justice and theoretical criminology.

Henrique Carvalho is Reader in Law at the School lƒœ