Inequality and Punishment: The Idiosyncrasies of the Political Economy of Punishment
Inequality and Punishment: The Idiosyncrasies of the Political Economy of Punishment
Prisons across the globe are manifestations of inequality. In any society, its most marginalised groups are overrepresented in prisons and all institutions of criminal justice. Notwithstanding this universal condition of contemporary criminal justice, the link between social inequality and inequality of punishment has been found to be tenuous and elusive. This contribution addresses the question how socio-economic inequality shapes the manifestations of punishment for a global sample of countries. As socio-economic inequality and criminal punishment are both multi-faceted concepts, several indicators are used for each. The findings confirm the highly contextual nature of the link between inequality and criminal punishment; they suggest a variegated impact of political economies, and a multiplicity of mechanisms that link inequality and criminal punishment across the globe.
Keywords: Imprisonment rates, Prison conditions, Human rights violations, Socio-economic inequality, Political power, OECD countries, Global regions, Political economy, Penal populism, Middle classes
British Academy Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.