Punishment

Question 1

Foucault - Prisons

Answer 1

Disciplinary Power
Illustrated through prisons - panopticon design - prisoners don’t know if or when being watched - behave at all times - surveillance becomes self surveillance and discipline into self discipline
Live in panopticon society, deterring people from crime.
Prisons are a metaphor for how we are all controlled eg
CCTV cameras, bank cards, phones, laptops

Purpose:
Protect
Track
This is an ideological state apparatus - make people conform without force

Question 2

Marxism -

Gordan

Answer 2

Punishment serves capitalism three ways:

1. Prison keeps w/c out of system - can’t create revolution
2. Capitalism is unfair system - placing people in prison covers up injustice, people not in prison benefit from capitalism
3. Ignores m/c crime and covers up greed of capitalism

A03 - labelling supports this - w/c labelled as deviant m/c most likely to get fines as they can afford to pay

Question 3

Marxism -

Rusche and Kirchheimer

Answer 3

Punishment corresponds to economic system they’re developed in:

Middle Ages - religious penance and fines, people were needed to work on the land
Later Middle Ages - rich needed to control poor, brutal corporal&capital punishment introduced
17th Century - shortage of labour, prisons developed as they could still produce goods cheaply

Question 4

Functionalism -

Durkheim

Answer 4

Pre - industrial times Labour wasn’t divided into specialist jobs - all people worked a relatively similar job - mechanical solidarity strengthened bond between people creating a stronger collective conscience
Punishment based on retribution - boundary maintenance
Modern societies specialist roles (doctor, builder, teacher) people are different with different values - weaker collective conscience
Reparation punishment - enforce boundary maintenance

Question 5

Postmodern punishment

Answer 5

Massive population:
Don’t have space in prisons
Don’t have money for mass incarceration

Punishment has to match the society we live in - eg shown thrown through rise in restorative justice

Question 6

General Marxist view to punishment

Answer 6

Prisoners are used as a backup workforce - whilst in prison learn physical labour/skill. Would need this labour during a world war - prisoners used a backup labour or soldiers
Marxists argue we don’t have death penalty anymore - it doesn’t serve capitalism - if killing convicted criminal (mostly w/c) the bourgeoisie are killing of their workforce

Question 7

Postmodern view -

Garland

Answer 7

Culture of control:
US and UK since 1970s punishment has changed. Previously - ‘Penal welfarism’’ - justice system tried to catch, punish, rehabilitate and reintegrate criminal
Modern society ‘penal welfarism’ is failing - personal freedom increased&social control weakened
Created shift to ‘culture of control’ and ‘punitive state’ - reassuring communities and directly deal with crime to change societies attitudes to crime and role of state

Question 8

Aim of Punishment

Answer 8

Rehabilitation (reformation) - changing criminal to become better person
Deterrence - put people off committing the crime
Retribution - equal force of punishment to crime they commit
Incapacitation (protection) - keeping criminal away from community to protect them
Restorative justice (reparation) - criminal making up for the crime they’ve committed