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Mark Brown, Penal Power and Colonial Rule

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorIda Nafstad
DOI10.1177/1462474514564928
Date01 April 2017
Published date01 April 2017
Subject MatterBook reviews
untitled 262
Punishment & Society 19(2)
divergent views by other actors are described as a ‘lack of maturity’ (p. 181) or not
‘understand[ing] its righteous place’ (p. 143).
The volume of the data that is analysed is impressive: 78 interviews with
judges, 115 interviews with other professional actors, 46 observations of hearings
and coding of 1300 decisions. However, the sheer amount of data does pose a few
problems for the analysis; the intention to ‘see it all’, for example using both
qualitative and quantitative analysis, is often left somewhere in between. The
quantitative analysis is descriptive and the qualitative analysis while supplying
numerous quotes and some observation notes could have been more penetrating.
Both would be strengthened by a thorough theoretical link and a clearer oper-
ationalization of the analytical concepts. In particular, the judge–of‌fender inter-
actions would have been interesting to see analysed from an emotion theoretical
perspective. The f‌indings further highlight several tensions between political,
legislative and executive functions. It would be fruitful to analyse these dif‌ferent
perspectives in relation to the core values and intentions of the judicial system in
addition to the process.
Despite these limitations, the book of‌fers a novel look into the French judicial
system that could be compared to or perhaps even incorporated into our general
understandings of criminal justice processes, which tend to be based heavily on
Anglo systems.
Reference
Wexler D (2000) Therapeutic jurisprudence: An overview. TM Cooley Law Review 17:
125–134.
Stina Bergman Blix
Stockholm University, Sweden
Mark Brown, Penal Power and Colonial Rule, Routledge: New York, 2014; 212 pp.
(including index): ISBN 0415452139, $135 (hbk)
In a Foucauldian framework, Mark Brown sets out to analyse penal power in the
British colonial rule of India between 1820 and 1920, following the strand of colo-
nial critique that scrutinizes the political rationality of colonial power through
...

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