Book Review: Punishment
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20662203231199577 |
| Author | Fergus McNeill |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Review
European Journal of Probation
2023, Vol. 15(3) 254–255
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/20662203231199577
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejp
Book Review
Canton Rob, (2022) Punishment. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 206, ISBN 9780367152307.
Reviewed by: Fergus McNeill, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Rob Canton’s most recent book, simply entitled ‘Punishment’, explores familiar territory
associated with the aims and ethics of punishment, its relationship to social order and how
it is organised within penal systems. But Canton also weaves into his analysis exploration
of why punishment matters, of the crucial (and often neglected) role played by emotions,
of punishment’s politicisation and its legitimacy and of the relationship between what it
promises in theory and what it delivers in practice. Somehow, he manages this while
delivering a highly engaging, relatively short and punchy book (as we have come to
expect of Routledge’s‘Key Ideas in Criminology’series). The book runs to just
206 pages; the last 40 of these detail the references on which Canton’s erudite and
compelling analysis is built.
For those not already familiar with Rob Canton’s previous work, his writing style is
crisp and clear; he advances his arguments step-by-careful-step, always taking care to
bring the reader with him. As is necessary in a book of this nature (and for this series), the
priority is to map the field and help the reader make interesting connections –as well as to
direct them to other sources (which is why the assiduous referencing is so important and
valuable), rather to dwell at length on detail. Having used the book in my own teaching
last year (to a class of 35 postgraduate students from 4 continents and 11 countries), I
know that both teachers and students will value these qualities highly.
Between the book’s relatively brief introduction and conclusion, we find five sub-
stantive chapters, on the meanings of punishment, theories of punishment, the institutions
and practices of punishment, being punished and the ends of punishment. The first chapter
considers definitions of punishment and how and why they are contested, as well as
focusing on punishment’s meaning and on how it degrades (or ‘lowers’) those punished.
In Chapter 2, Canton goes on to introduce a range of theories of punishment; in other
words, theories that try to explain why punishment is as it is. As well as looking at familiar
sociological accounts of punishment’s evolution as a social institution, and at how it
therefore differs in different times and places, he pays particular heed to the role of
attitudes and emotions in framing both punishment itself and penal politics. Here, he
discusses anger, fear and disgust, but also, importantly, sadness, care and compassion.
Canton makes a compelling case for analysing the role of these powerful emotions in
punishment’s legitimation and de-legitimation.
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