Communicative punishment as a penal approach to supporting desistance
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480608100171 |
| Author | Beth Weaver |
| Date | 01 February 2009 |
| Published date | 01 February 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Communicative punishment as a penal
approach to supporting desistance
BETH WEAVER
Glasgow School of Social Work, Universities of Glasgow and
Strathclyde, UK
Abstract
This essay aims to explore the interfaces between Habermas’ theory
of communicative action (in particular his notion of the ‘colonisation
of the lifeworld’); Duff’s penal communication theory and Rex’s
recent work on reconstructing community penalties. Its central
argument is that a critical reading of the desistance research
provides empirical support for the need to reconceptualise penal
practices as communicative enterprises which can engage with their
stakeholders in supporting desistance—both at the level of the
individual and in the community. Particular attention is paid to the
need to reconsider the relationship between ‘offender management’
services and the communities which they purport to serve.
Key Words
communicative punishment •community penalties •desistance
Introduction
This essay explores Habermas’ theory of communicative action and its
relevance for contemporary criminology and criminal justice, focusing in par-
ticular on debates about desistance from crime and how criminal justice can
best promote it. The central argument is that a Habermasian lens has partic-
ular value in current times in which contemporary penological accounts
stress, variously, managerialism, globalisation and neo-liberalism as key driv-
ers of late modern approaches to crime control. Taking Habermas’ theory of
Theoretical Criminology
© 2009 SAGE Publications
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Vol. 13(1): 9–29; 1362–4806
DOI: 10.1177/1362480608100171
9
communicative action, from a broadly uncritical stance, provides the concep-
tual resources for a fundamentally different approach, offering a necessary
balance to the risk orientated discourses, techniques and practices dominat-
ing contemporary criminal justice practices.
Habermas’ concepts of the ‘lifeworld’ and ‘systems’ are explained as
precursors to an exposition of his theory of the colonisation of the lifeworld. I
arguethat the current operation of criminal justice in theUK, and further afield,
can be understood, in Habermasian terms, as exemplary of a system, which, in
the course of time, has become ‘uncoupled’ from the lifeworld. By ‘lifeworld’
Habermas is referring to the shared common understandings and values that
develop through face to face contacts over time in various social groups, from
families to communities. This ‘system’ (a term Habermas uses to refer to the
market economy and the state apparatus) then functions independently, no
longer on the basis of communicative action (which is the process of reaching
common understanding) but in terms of the functionality of the steering mech-
anismsof money and power (Deflem, 1996).Hence, fromthe perspective of the
theory of communicative action, penal practices canbe cast as the social mech-
anisms that proactively or reactively attend to crime and are designed and exe-
cuted by both state and ‘private’ agencies of social control, guided by
bureaucratic and economic imperatives, to intervene in the lifeworld and to
respond to legitimate demands emanating from the lifeworld. Thus, it is pro-
posed that Habermas’ ideas relating to the colonisation of the lifeworld, by sys-
tems, are pertinent to an analysis of the way penal systems have been
reconfigured by risk, illustrative of the predominance of economic forms of
rationality, correlativewith culture of control, governmentality and risk society
theorists (see e.g. Garland, 1997, 2001; Hudson, 2003; Rose, 2000).
The essay then proceedsto offer an alternativeway of conceptualising criminal
justice practices as communicative enterprises, premised on Habermas’ theory of
discourse ethics, which, I suggest, is compatible with Duff’s (2001, 2003) penal
communication theory, and Rex’s (2005) empirical study, which, in turn, draws
on Duff’s theorising.It is posited thatthe implications of Rex’sstudy, in conjunc-
tion with the findings emerging from the literature on desistance (e.g. Farrall,
2002; Leibrich,1993; McCulloch, 2005; McNeill,2006;Maruna,2001; Maruna
and LeBel, 2003; Maruna et al., 2004; Rex, 1999), might support the need to
reconceptualise penal practices as communicative enterprises. The essay con-
cludes by forwarding some ideas as to how these might be operated in practice.
Instrumental and communicative action
Habermas’ theory of communicative action fundamentally differentiates
between two distinct concepts of rationality that guide action (Habermas,
1984:8–22, 168–85). First,there is ‘instrumental’ or ‘purposive-rational’ action
whichaims for goal attainmentand servestechnical interests(Cheal, 2005:106;
Deflem, 1996: Hudson, 2003). Whileall ‘purposive-relational’ actions are con-
cerned with success and efficiencythey are cast as ‘instrumental’ when they are
Theoretical Criminology 13(1)
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