Winner of the 1991 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Sociological Association
Winner of the Outstanding Scholarship Award of the Crime and Delinquency Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, USA
The first comprehensive account of the role of punishment in modern society, this book buils upon the work of Durkheim, Foucault, and others, and provides a fascinating interpretation of this complex social institution, showing how penal institutions interact with strategies of power, socio-economic structures, and cultural sensibilities.
The sociology of punishment and punishment today; punishment and social solidarity - the work of Emile Durkheim; punishment and the construction of authority - a reworking of Durkheimian themes; the political economy of punishment - Rusche and Kirchheimer and the Marxist tradition; punishment as ideology and class control - variations on Marxist themes; punishment and the technologies of power - the work of Michel Foucault; beyond the power perspective - a critique of Foucault on punishment; the rationalization of punishment - Weberian themes and modern penality; punishment and culture - cultural forms and penal practices; punishment and sensibilities - a genealogy of "civilized" sanctions; punishment as a cultural agent - penality's role in the creation of culture; punishment as a social institution.
