How does the ‘penal populism’ theory explain penal policies in certain Countries?
This essay will explain how penal populism theories explain penal policies in certain countries by firstly analysing penal populism by using New Zealand as a lens, and secondly comparing New Zealand to the Nordic countries, who are not considered to coincide with penal populous thought and therefore determining if the theory explains New Zealand’s penal policies.
Penal populism theory at its most basic level has been described to be, to “convey the notion of politicians tapping into, and using for their own purposes, what they believe to be the public’s generally punitive stance” (Bartlett)therefore inferring it is ideas that politicians use to gain votes so that they can continue in power. However, penal populism theory is not this simple and has been developed to contain four extensions that have been seen in contemporary New Zealand that also help to explain penal policies.
The first extension to the base penal populism theory is labelled the “disenchantment with the existing democratic system and aims to provide a link between governmental shifts and how that has affected the growth of penal populism. Neo-liberalism is a political system that had come to power in many developed countries for decades, in the New Zealand context it was not added until 1984. Prior to the change the governmental system was based heavily around the economist John Maynard Keynes and his theories(Lunt et al., 2008a). The system was therefore a heavily restrictive system in political, social and economic spheres, however aimed to provide a better system than the seemingly destructive liberal welfare systems that had been in place before Keynesianism by attempting to ...
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The Punishment Imperative, a book based on the transition from a time when punishment was thought to be necessarily harsh to a time where reform in the prion system is needed, explains the reasons why the grand social experiment of severe punishment did not work. The authors of the book, Todd R. Clear and Natasha A. Frost, strongly argue that the previous mindset of harsh punishment has been replaced due to political shifts, firsthand evidence, and spending issues within the government. Clear and Frost successfully assert their argument throughout the book using quantitative and qualitative information spanning from government policies to the reintegration of previous convicts into society.
Jacobs, David and Jason T. Carmichael. 2002. “The Political Sociology of the Death Penalty: A Pooled Time-Series Analysis.” American Sociological Review 67: 109-131.
In all the history of America one thing has been made clear, historians can’t agree on much. It is valid seeing as none of them can travel back in time to actually experience the important events and even distinguish what has value and what doesn’t. Therefore all historians must make a leap and interpret the facts as best they can. The populist movement does not escape this paradox. Two views are widely accepted yet vastly different, the views of Richard Hofstadter and Lawrence Goodwyn. They disagree on whether populists were “isolated and paranoid bigots” or “sophisticated, empathetic egalitarians”; whether their leaders were “opportunists who victimized them” or “visionary economic theorists who liberated them”; whether their beliefs were rooted in the free silver campaign of the 1890s or the cooperative movement of the 1880s; and finally whether their ideal society was in the “agrarian past” or “the promise of a cooperative future”. They could not agree on anything, over all Richard Hofstadter seems to have a better idea of the truth of populism.
(1996). Volume 2, Sixth Edition, Australian Geographic: New South Wales. 8. Victory, M. (2004). End of the Line- Capital Punishment in Australia, CIS Publishers: Victoria.
Pettit, Becky, and Bruce Western. "Incarceration & Social Inequality." Daedalus 139.3 (2010): 8+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 15 May 2014.
The major goal of the Australian prison at the beginning of the 20th century was the removal of lawbreakers from their activities in society (King, 2001). The Australian legal system relies on deterrence (Carl et al, 2011, p. 119), that is, a system that has two key assumptions: (i) specific punishments imposed on offenders will ‘deter’ or prevent them from committing further crimes (ii) the fear of punishment will prevent others from committing similar crimes (Carl et al, 2011, p. 119). However it is not always the case that deterrence is successful as people commit crime without concern for punishment, thinking that they will get away with the crime committed (Jacob, 2011). Economists argue that crime is a result of individuals making choices
The government system of Oceania is a totalitarian state. It is controlled by a group known as “The Party.” The Party claims to be headed by an entity known as “Big Brother,” though no one has ever seen him aside from in propaganda. The ideological basis of The Party is referred to as INGSOC. The three tenants of INGSOC are “WAR IS PEACE [.] FREEDOM IS SLAVERY [.] IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell, 6). The Party is split into two components, the Inner Party, and the Outer Party. The Inner Party - comprised of less than 2% of the population – is the upper ruling class that controls everything. The Outer Party functions as the middle class and works as lower level employees at the four Ministries of The Party. The majority of the population, known as the Proles (short for “proletariats”), are the poor working class.
The ‘Great’ Reform Act of 1832 was considered as a failure and a betrayal for the Chartist movement. The Chartist movement demanded their six points from the people’s charter to be accepted by the government, some of which were supposed to have been passed in the 1832 Reform Act. These included, ‘vote by ballot’, ‘universal suffrage’ and ‘no property qualifications’. However, none of these were implemented in the 1832 Reform Act and rather the working class people saw the Act as if it was ultimately designed to exclude them from participating in the government and had dashed their hope of a parliament that would truly represent them. The introduction of uniform of ten pounds’ franchise in the boroughs excluded the vast
Alexander (2010) suggests mass incarceration as a system of racialized social control that functions in the same way Jim Crow did. She describes how people that have been incarcer...
Taking Too Much for Granted: Studying the Movement and Re-Assessing the Terms. The Case For Penal Abolition? Ed.
The origin of the word prison comes from the Latin word to seize. It is fair to say that the traditionally use of prison correspond well with the origin of the word; as traditionally prison was a place for holding people whilst they were awaiting trail. Now, centuries on and prisons today is used as a very popular, and severe form of punishment offered to those that have been convicted. With the exception however, of the death penalty and corporal punishment that still takes place in some countries. Being that Prison is a very popular form of punishment used in today's society to tackle crime and punish offenders, this essay will then be examining whether prison works, by drawing on relevant sociological factors. Furthermore, it will be looking at whether punishment could be re-imagined, and if so, what would it entail?
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Sociological analysis of the role of punishment in modern society started with the question of what the role and limits of the power of government should be. Through development, sociology became a 'separate discipline'. (Ibid., p8) Here, Emile Durkheim saw that the only source of moral authority in modern society was the law. In terms of punishment, Durkheim saw the criminal law and the punishment system as a way for society to express its rules and values. This meant that moral boundaries were outlined and sustained through the assertion of penalties for crimes.
7th edition. London: Pearson Longman, ed. Garner, R., Ferdinand, P. and Lawson, S. (2009) Introduction to Politics. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Punishing the unlawful, undesirable and deviant members of society is an aspect of criminal justice that has experienced a variety of transformations throughout history. Although the concept of retribution has remained a constant (the idea that the law breaker must somehow pay his/her debt to society), the methods used to enforce and achieve that retribution has changed a great deal. The growth and development of society along with an underlying, perpetual fear of crime are heavily linked to the use of vastly different forms of punishment that have ranged from public executions, forced labor, penal welfarism and popular punitivism over the course of only a few hundred years.