Book Review: Sonja Snacken and Els Dumortier (Eds), Resisting Punitiveness in Europe? Welfare, Human Rights and Democracy
| Author | Jill Annison |
| Published date | 01 August 2014 |
| Date | 01 August 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2066220314540567 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
540567EJP0010.1177/2066220314540567European Journal of ProbationBook Review
2014
Book Review
European Journal of Probation
2014, Vol. 6(2) 194 –196
Book Review
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/2066220314540567
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Sonja Snacken and Els Dumortier (Eds), Resisting Punitiveness in Europe? Welfare, Human Rights
and Democracy, Routledge: Abingdon, 2012; 279 pp.: ISBN 978-0-415-67892-6, 90.00 (hbk),
ISBN 978-0-415-67893-3, £33.99 (pbk), ISBN 978-0-203-80665-4 (ebk)
Reviewed by: Jill Annison, Plymouth University, UK
This edited collection of chapters arose from a seminar, ‘Factors of Criminalization – A
European Comparative Approach’, which took place in April 2007, within the wider
context of the CRIMPREV Coordinated Action project from 2006–2009 (an interdisci-
plinary consortium of 30 participants from 10 European countries, see http://ec.europa.
eu/research/social-sciences/projects/226_en.html). In the introductory chapter, Sonja
Snacken and Els Dumortier outline the contents and describe the varied contributions to
academic knowledge and debates. The chapters are divided into three main sections:
‘Punishment and Welfare – From Correlations to Interactions’; ‘Punishment and Human
Rights – Shield or Sword?’; and ‘Punishment and Democracy – Which Role for Victims
and Public Opinion?’ Importantly, Snacken and Dumortier also critically discuss the
concept of punitiveness itself.
The topical relevance and (for an Anglophone readership) fresh intellectual scope
offered by the European viewpoints in this edited collection are immediately apparent
and particularly enticing, not least for engaging with, but also shifting the usual frames
of reference. Beyond this, the book has a campaigning aim of turning
…the empirical findings about the correlations or interactions between these three areas [i.e.
the three sections of the book] and levels of punitiveness into normative arguments for...
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