Introduction to the Special Issue on the Problem of Punishment: Renewing Critique

Date01 February 2019
AuthorAnastasia Chamberlen,Antony Duff,Henrique Carvalho
Published date01 February 2019
DOI10.1177/0964663918797995
Subject MatterArticles
Article
Introduction to the
Special Issue on the
Problem of Punishment:
Renewing Critique
Henrique Carvalho, Anastasia Chamberlen
University of Warwick, UK
Antony Duff
University of Stirling, UK
Abstract
This introduction presents a collection of papers by Alan Norrie, Craig Reeves, Susanne
Karstedt, Tiffany Bergin, MichaelKoch, Mary Bosworth, Anastasia Chamberlen, Henrique
Carvalho and Anita Dockley. It briefly discusses the origins of this collaborative research
project, and outlines the theme, aims and format of the special issue, which calls for an
interdisciplinary, theoretically informed and conceptually and practically critical examina-
tion of punishment today. It then provides a summary of the approach and argument of
each of the contributions to the issue and offers a few reflections on ways forward.
Keywords
Punishment, punitiveness, prison, criminal justice, immigration detention
Today, more than ever, we legal scholars, criminologists, philosophers and sociologists
should be re-examining punishment. As the world at large experiences a series of social,
political and economic ‘crises’, and these interact with shifts and transformations in
notions of security, belonging, justice and social order, the many different established
consensuses of the late nineties and early noughties in relation to punishment theory and
practice find themselves on insecure ground and in need of reassessment. On the one
hand, we can observe that punishment, as idea, institution and practice, occupies a solid
and undisputed presence in criminal justice systems and in a range of public policies and
Corresponding author:
Henrique Carvalho, School of Law, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.
Email: h.carvalho@warwick.ac.uk
Social & Legal Studies
2019, Vol. 28(1) 3–9
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663918797995
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