NCJ Number
191032
Journal
Theoretical Criminology Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2001 Pages: 283-314
Editor(s)
Lynn Chancer,
Tony Jefferson
Date Published
August 2001
Length
32 pages
Annotation
This study sought to extend previous research themes, specifically Nils Christie, Crime Control as Industry, on mass-imprisonment as a natural outgrowth of society, not an exception to it, suggesting a move into an area of penal control.
Abstract
Many western countries are experiencing increasing prison populations that some 20 years or so ago would have been unthinkable since the major emphasis in penal policy was on how to reduce prison populations. Numerous reasons for these increases were presented. However, at the heart of all the explanations was the notion that what was being seen represented an aberration: people were not normally as punitive as they were today. It was a system not working as it should be and politicians were abusing their power and more. And, still it was thought that what if these prison trends were instead a normal feature of many modern societies as suggested by Nils Christie. Mass-imprisonment could be seen not as an exception but as a trendsetter. This study reconsidered and sought to extend the themes in Nils Christie's book on Crime Control as Industry, suggesting there may already be a move into an area of penal control, beyond the prison. The prison itself may no longer be a sufficient modality of punishment to absorb the punitive feelings currently at work in modern societies. Supplementation of modern penal sanctions come into play through new forms of legal and extra legal punishments. Christie's hope was that at some point the basic good sense of ordinary people would prevail and counter the trends that the forces of modern society had made possible. It was argued that there was no essentialized goodness to human values and public sentiment, and that these would only add to the spiral of penal control. References