NCJ Number
196637
Journal
Theoretical Criminology Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2002 Pages: 319-337
Date Published
August 2002
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This article describes gothicism and contemporary punitive populism.
Abstract
Gothicism is typified by gruesome injury and trauma and is a prominent feature of the discourses of public protection and vengeance. The gothic has historically dramatized a modern preoccupation with boundaries and their collapse. There is an erosion of traditional distinctions between public and private spheres, information and entertainment, and the legal and extra-legal. The gothic takes a prominent place in contemporary punitive populism. It is embedded in the practices of the institutions of crime control and punishment. For three decades, the theory of moral panic has offered a persuasive means of critical engagement with the emotionally charged responses to certain crimes. The notion of moral panic theorizes a temporary and aberrational over-reaction. A problem with adopting moral panic theory is its supporting notion of the criminal trial as a boundary-setting ritual, and one that works through clear denunciation. Gothicism narrates crime and punishment in a sensational manner, accomplishing its potent effects through titillated fascination and excited revulsion rather than the didactic. Realist horror is characterized by a displacement from plot to gruesome spectacle, showing the spectacular nature of violence and fuelling the agenda of penal severity and public protection by creating a climate of fear in which everyone is a potential victim. Monsters created by realist horror seem to have possibility as ordinary people turned killers rather than supernatural beings. The concept of abjection relates the powers of horror to the horror of that which breaches boundaries. A crime committed by one child against another is doubly abject. Abjection inscribes an impossible logic of limit, boundary, border, and enclosure, as the foundation and cost of a set of institutions and practices that are proper. 6 notes, 33 references