Inequality and penality: The hidden side of a complex relationship
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Author | Charlotte Vanneste |
| DOI | 10.1177/14773708211028179 |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue: Penal changes, crises, and the political economy of punishment |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14773708211028179
European Journal of Criminology
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/14773708211028179
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Inequality and penality:
The hidden side of a
complex relationship
Charlotte Vanneste
National Institute of Forensic Science and Criminology (NICC/INCC) and University Liège, Belgium
Abstract
This article focuses on the close association between inequality and punishment observed
over recent decades at a macro level, at least in some regions of the world. A review of the
empirical literature first provides an overview of the different types of variables mobilized to try
to understand this complex relationship. The aim of the empirical part is to explore the potential
role of attitudes towards inequality in this relationship, on the basis of country-level data available
for West European countries. The results do not support the idea that a more meritocratic
ethos at the country level would create the connection between inequality and punishment.
On the contrary, they suggest the persistence of a systemic link independently of attitudinal
variables. However, by showing that, the greater the inequality, the more the population calls for
redistributive intervention by the state, and the more it also calls for punitive intervention, the
findings could suggest another pattern. This moves away from a rather deterministic perspective
to highlight the room for manoeuvre for social change.
Keywords
Attitudes towards inequality, cross-national comparisons, fear of crime, inequality, penality,
punitive attitudes
Introduction
The relationship between inequality and penality has been matter of scientific concern
since the 1980s. This period is identified as the beginning of the overall trend of rising
inequality (OECD, 2008). Over the past decade, the explosion of social movements such
as ‘Occupy Wall Street’ (2011) or the ‘Gilets Jaunes’ in France (2018), as well as main-
stream books by renowned authors (Piketty, 2014; Stiglitz, 2012) have contributed to
Corresponding author:
Charlotte Vanneste, Institut National de Criminalistique et de Criminologie, Direction opérationnelle
Criminologie, Tour des Finances - 7ème étage, bte 71, Centre Administratif Botanique, Boulevard du Jardin
Botanique 50, B-1120 Brussels, Belgium
Email: charlotte.vanneste@just.fgov.be
1028179EUC0010.1177/14773708211028179European Journal of CriminologyVanneste
research-article2021
2022, Vol. 19(3) 394–418
Special Issue: Penal changes, crises, and the political economy of punishment
bringing inequality more to the forefront of public debates and political agendas. In this
context, it is of particular relevance to look at the role that public attitudes and opinions
might play in the relationship between inequality and penality.
The first part of this contribution reviews empirical research that has attempted to
understand the components of the complex relationship between inequality and punish-
ment. The place of the few studies that focus on the relationship between punitiveness
and attitudes towards inequalities is thus defined within the scope of a large body of
research.
The empirical study presented in the second part of this article aims to examine
whether – and in what way – country-level attitudes towards inequality might or might
not help to explain the close association observed at the macro level between inequality
and punishment in 14 West European countries.
Inequality and penality: Revealing a link and its story
For more than four decades, a substantial body of research has shown that differences
and variations in prison rates between countries cannot be explained – or can be explained
only very partially – by differences and variations in crime (Tonry, 2007; Young and
Brown, 1993; Zimring and Hawkins, 1991). The association between these two terms
was analysed cross-sectionally and over time and the results converge to show that incar-
ceration rates are largely unrelated to either victimization or recorded crime rates (Lappi-
Seppälä, 2011a). Even if crime is the legal condition for the initiation of criminal law
enforcement, criminality and penality are two social phenomena that vary to a large
extent autonomously.
The ‘crime–incarceration disconnect’ has opened the door to the consideration of a
wide range of potential factors from the economic, social and political fields. Although
having diverse theoretical foundations, these studies will be articulated in a more struc-
tured way in the approaches initially inspired by Rusche and Kirchheimer’s Punishment
and Social Structure (R&K) and its revisited versions ([1939] 1969). The limitations of
this article do not allow us to account for all the arguments and concepts developed in
this research tradition on the relationship between political economy and penality. This
is also not the purpose of this article. Recent literature already meets this ambitious
objective by providing an overview of the history and state of the art of the political
economy of punishment tradition, distinguishing between pioneering work (the ‘old’
political economy of punishment) and the renewal of this tradition, stimulated above all
by a comparative perspective (Brandariz-Garcia et al., 2018; De Giorgi, 2013; Sozzo,
2018; Vanneste, 2018).
Among other findings, the political economy of punishment has brought to light, at least
in some parts of the world, the close link between inequality and penality, showing a soci-
ety’s tendency to be at the same time both unequal and punitive, and this independently of
the levels of crime (Vanneste, 2001; Vanneste, 2013; Vanneste, 2018). A large body of lit-
erature has set the framework for strong theoretical connections between inequality and
punishment. These appear to be mediated on the one hand, directly or indirectly, by attitu-
dinal components of fear of crime and/or punitiveness, and on the other hand by structural
political and institutional effects related to particular models of capitalism.
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Vanneste
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