The lurking punitive threat: The philosophy of necessity and challenges for reform
| Date | 01 February 2019 |
| Published date | 01 February 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480617719450 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/110.1177/1362480617719450
Theoretical Criminology
2019, Vol. 23(1) 25 –42
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 110.1177/1362480617719450
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The lurking punitive threat:
The philosophy of necessity
and challenges for reform
Sonya Goshe
Wilmington College, USA
Abstract
Despite some encouraging reforms and a new optimism in criminal justice, problematic
punishment persists in the USA. In this article, I argue that the difficulties of reform
stem, in part, from an ingrained ‘philosophy of necessity’ that places punishment at the
core of how to think about crime and social problems, and promotes a worldview that
overvalues punishment’s ability to provide safety, provoke change and ensure justice.
The philosophy of necessity grants punishment the ‘benefit of the doubt’, even when
such confidence is unwarranted, and fosters reliance on punitive norms that encourage
excess and abuse. A series of features work together to encourage the philosophy of
necessity in the USA: blindness to the history of using punishment to ensure economic
and social security for the privileged, ongoing policies that breed high levels of violence,
and cultural endorsement of punitive logic as a substitution for social security and
substantive justice.
Keywords
Penal policy, philosophy, punishment, punishment and society, punitiveness
Introduction
It has been an exciting time for criminal justice reform. In juvenile justice, the Supreme
Court has eliminated the death penalty and narrowed life without parole (Graham v. Florida,
2010; Miller v. Alabama, 2012; Montgomery v. Louisiana, 2016; Roper v. Simmons, 2005).
Corresponding author:
Sonya Goshe, Wilmington College, Pyle Center 1191, 1870 Quaker Way, Wilmington, OH 45177, USA.
Email: sonya_goshe@wilmington.edu
771945TCR00110.1177/1362480617719450Theoretical CriminologyGoshe
research-article2017
Article
26 Theoretical Criminology 23(1)
Arrests are down, violent crime is down from previous peaks, and many states have started
chipping away at prison populations, even going so far as to close whole institutions (Martin,
2016; Puzzanchera, 2013). Both political parties agree that prison is expensive, and there is
growing acknowledgment that other alternatives work better and cost far less (Clear and
Frost, 2014). Mass incarceration has lost important legal battles on 8th amendment grounds
(Simon, 2012), and several states, notably New York and California, are forerunners in the
decarceration movement (Martin, 2016).
But despite the forward momentum and important changes, much of the ‘real change’
has been ‘nibbling at the edges’ (Doob and Webster, 2014: 557). Not only have the real
changes in carceral populations for the most part been minimal, many states have simply
leveled off or even increased incarceration rates (BJS, 2014). After the recent presidential
election and executive orders surrounding immigration and private prisons, future steps
forward, even tentative ones, could face a steep uphill battle. Scholars have noted the deep
historical roots of punishment (Lynch, 2010; Lynch and Bertenthal, 2016) that continue to
infuse contemporary sentencing practices. The economic payoffs of the prison industrial
complex have proven difficult to shut off, and prison’s important ties to creating and
reproducing inequality (Wakefield and Uggen, 2010) have been easier to uncover than
undo. The US approach to using prison as a social insurance policy has been proven a
failure (Currie, 2013), matched only by its comparable, and frightening success at uphold-
ing and reshaping contemporary racial oppression (Alexander, 2010; Wacquant, 2001).
Indeed, the accomplishments of the system themselves are shameful: one in three black
men incarcerated in their lifetimes (Pew, 2013); young people of color treated as criminal
threats that need to be subdued (Rios, 2006); millions of children left behind as their par-
ents go to prison (Uggen and Wakefield, 2006); destabilized communities that expose
residents to even more violence and risk (Clear, 2007); and whole communities ‘on the
run’ from the myriad threats of the street and the state (Goffman, 2014).
Even noting that the US justice systems are localized and subject to jurisdictional
variation, while important theoretically and practically, does not override the common
theme of punishing too often, too much, and under abusive conditions. Similarly, the fact
that there is evidence of progressive movement and hopefulness (Clear and Frost, 2014;
Green, 2015) does not alter the reality that we have a long way to go in producing reforms
that are both meaningfully different and sustainable over time. In juvenile justice, the
place where we are typically most willing to recognize the limits of punishment, we
continue exceptionally punitive practices, incarcerating youth at 5–10 times the rate of
comparable countries (Travis and Western, 2014), prosecuting them as adults in a large
majority of states (Arya, 2011), subjecting them to solitary confinement, allowing life
without parole and functional life sentences, and doing precious little to help them transi-
tion to a productive life once they return home (Bernstein, 2014). I am not denying real
efforts are being made, but I am arguing that these harshly punitive practices remain, and
have been remarkably difficult to eliminate even in places, such as the juvenile justice
system, ostensibly committed to ideals beyond punishment.
The philosophy of necessity
Here, I argue that the stability of punishment and the difficulties of reform stem from an
inflated philosophical commitment to punishment in the USA. What I call the philosophy
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