Imaginary Penalities

Description

This book is concerned to explore the idea of imaginary penalities and to understand why the management of criminal justice and criminal justice systems has so often reached crisis point. Its underlying theme is that when political strategies of punitive populism are combined with managerialist techniques of social auditing, a new all-encompassing form of governance has emerged - powerless to deliver what it promises but with a momentum of its own and increasingly removed from proper democratic accountability. A highly distinguished international group of contributors explores this set of them.  Read more... Abstract: This book is concerned to explore the idea of imaginary penalities and to understand why the management of criminal justice and criminal justice systems has so often reached crisis point. Its underlying theme is that when political strategies of punitive populism are combined with managerialist techniques of social auditing, a new all-encompassing form of governance has emerged - powerless to deliver what it promises but with a momentum of its own and increasingly removed from proper democratic accountability. A highly distinguished international group of contributors explores this set of them Content: Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgements About the contributors Imagine 1 Imaginary penalities and risk-crazed governance 2 Imaginable insecurities: imagination, routinisation and the government of uncertainty post 9/11 3 The first casualty: evidence and governance in a war against crime 4 Inventing community safety 5 Telling sentencing stories 6 The 'seemingness' of the 'seamless management' of offenders 7 Pain and punishment: the real and the imaginary penal institutions 8 Imaginary reform: changing the postcolonial prison 9 The imaginary constitution of wage labourers. 10 Re-imagining gendered penalities: the myth of gender responsivity11 Risking desistance: respect and responsibility in custodial and post-release contexts 12 'The best seven years I could'a done': the reconstruction of imprisonment as rehabilitation 13 Re-imagining justice: principles of justice for divided societies in a globalised world References Index.