Book Review: Milena Tripkovic, Punishment and Citizenship: A Theory of Criminal Disenfranchisement
| Date | 01 January 2022 |
| Author | Pablo Marshall |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474520972479 |
| Published date | 01 January 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Milena Tripkovic, Punishment and Citizenship: A Theory of Criminal
Disenfranchisement, Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 2019; 192
pp.: ISBN: 9780190848620, $74.00 (hbk)
Milena Tripkovic’sPunishment and Citizenship represents probably the most refined the-
oretical work available on criminal disenfranchisement. Tripkovic surveys almost every
part of the literature on the topic, thereby supporting her own novel argument defending a
limited use of disenfranchisement in the context of modern constitutional democracies.
The author masterfully articulates criminal theory, citizenship theory, comparative
tools, and criminological insights, showing us the theoretical openness of a book
whose main argument, however, stays comfortably in the realm of the normative theory.
The argument of the book is that criminal disenfranchisement –the deprivation of poli-
tical right that follows a criminal conviction –is not a criminal punishment, which corre-
sponds to the subjects of law as such, but a non-penal sanction directed (nowadays and
in the past) to the same subjects in their status of citizens. It is therefore a sanction that
pursues its own function; it is subject to its own application criteria. The implications of
this conceptual argument (developed in Chapters 2 and 4) are elaborated in the following
chapters. Tripkovic considers criminal disenfranchisement a primarily symbolic sanction
that denounces an individual failing to live up to the required citizenship standards. In
Chapter 5, Tripkovic sets the three notions of citizenship and develops the requirements
that each of themplace on citizens: (1) followingRawls, the liberal notion requires the cap-
acity for a sense of justice; (2) the republican not ion requires civic virtue; and, finally, (3) the
communitarian notion must subscribe to a particular interpretation of common good. Then,
in Chapter 6, it is affirmedthat a lack of these requirements does not demands the disenfran-
chisement of all criminal. Candidates to be disenfranchised ar e, in Tripkovic’s proposal, a
limited group ofcriminals that happened to be thesame in all three citizenship approaches.
She uses criminological studies to determine that those affected by Antisocial Personality
Disorder are the only criminals that lack the requirements for citizenship (in all three the-
ories) and therefore are the only ca ndidates for disenfranchisement. This implies then
that criminals without such disorder should be enfranchised.
Applying hermodel, the author identifies that the majority ofdemocracies in Europe (as
systematized in Chapter 3) follow the guidelines set by some of the notions of citizenship
described, at least as a matter of principle, and depart from them on details that could be
adjusted without the need to eliminate the institution of criminal disenfranchisement.
Tripkovic concludes by emphasizing that criminal disenfranchisement is not a political obli-
gation for thestate but a practice that maybe justified under the said condi tions. Ultimately,
the requirements that are set to remain a full member of the community with participation
rights depend on the self-determination of each political community (Chapter 7).
I would like to draw attention to two problems that I consider weaken the argument
offered by Tripkovic’s book. These problems have in common that they are internal to
the author’s normative approach. Additionally, I would like to make a more general cri-
tique of the normative approach as a fruitful perspective for investigating criminal
disenfranchisement.
Book Reviews 143
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