Penal Abolitionism and Transformative Justice in Brazil discusses how penal abolitionism provides fundamental theoretical bases and practical references for the construction of a transformative justice in Brazil, supporting the claim that justice is a socially constructed conception and that victims do not unanimously stand for punishment. The book explores how the active participation of the protagonists of a conflict in a face-to-face negotiation of symbolic reparation, can produce a sense of justice without the need to punish or impose suffering on anyone. Mapping the ways that restorative justice in Brazil has distanced itself from the potential of transformative justice, to the extent that it fails to politicize the conflict and give voice to victims, the book shows how it has resulted in becoming just a new version of penal alternatives with correctionalist content. Moving away from traditional criminal justice language and also from conservative approaches to restorative justice, the author argues that the communicative potential of the transformative kind of redress can be dissociated from the unproved assumption that legal punishment is essential or even likely to achieve justice or deterrence. The arguments are grounded in the Brazilian reality, where life is marked by deep social inequalities and a high level of police violence. By providing a review of the literature on restorative justice, transformative justice, and abolitionism, the book contextualizes the abolitionist debate in Brazil and its history in the 19th century. Penal Abolitionism and Transformative Justice in Brazil is important reading for students and scholars who study punishment and penal abolitionism, to think about what it is possible to do in societies so deeply marked by social injustice and a history of oppression.

The Routledge International Handbook of Penal Abolition provides an authoritative and comprehensive look at the latest developments in the 21st-century penal abolitionism movement, both reflecting on key critical thought and setting the agenda for local and global abolitionist ideas and interventions over the coming decade. Penal abolitionists question the legitimacy of criminal law, policing, courts, prisons and more broadly the idea of punishment, to argue that rather than effectively handling or solving social problems, interpersonal disputes, conflicts and harms, they actually increase individual and societal problems. The Routledge International Handbook of Penal Abolition is organized around six key themes: Social movements and abolition organizing Critical resistance to the penal state Voices from imprisoned and marginalized communities Diversity of abolitionist thought International perspectives on abolitionism Building new justice practices as a response to social and individual wrongdoing. A global-centred and world-encompassing project, this book provides the reader with an alternative and critical perspective from which to reflect and raises the visibility of abolitionist ideas and strategies in a time when there is considerable discussion of how we will move forward in response to what has given rise to the criminalizing system: white supremacy, racial capitalism and human wrongdoing. It is essential reading for all those engaged with punishment and penology, criminology, sociology, corrections and critical prisons studies. It will appeal to any reader who seeks an innovative response to the calamitous failures of the modern criminalizing system.

Setting Relations Right in Restorative Practice is a practical guide to using restorative processes, both in justice systems, to provide a healing response to harm, and in broader community contexts, to help people co-exist peacefully. Restorative processes can help to establish, maintain, deepen, and repair relationships, and to neutralise the conflict associated with negative relationships. The result is less conflict within people, between people, and between groups, and increasing individual and community wellbeing. These complex goals can be distilled to the single principle of setting relations right. The authors distil lessons from their decades of work at the frontline of restorative innovation. They outline an accurate, accessible theory that informs a restorative mindset, and describe in detail the corresponding skill set. Succinct, engaging case studies include refinements to existing programs in justice systems. Other case studies include the innovations of restorative responses to institutional abuse and to family violence and sexual harm, initiatives to increase psychological safety in schools and workplaces, and programs that support restorative ways-of-working across whole cities or regions. By applying elements from successful programs, practitioners can realise the broader reforming potential of restorative practice. This book is essential reading for restorative practitioners, administrators, and policymakers, for students and researchers – indeed, for anyone interested in the power and potential of restorative practice and other forms of deliberative decision-making.

This book reflects on the institutionalisation of restorative justice over the last 20 years and offers a critical analysis of the qualitative consequences generated by such a process on the normative structure of restorative justice, and on its understanding and uses in practice. Bringing together an international collection of leading scholars, this book provides a range of context-sensitive case studies that enhance our understanding of the development of international, national and institutional policy frameworks for restorative justice, the mainstreaming of practices within the criminal justice system, the proliferation of cultural, social and political co-optations of restorative justice and the ways in which the formalisation of the restorative justice movement have affected its values, aims and goals.

Challenging the Northern-centric approach that has dominated the literature on punishment-and-society, this collection draws on innovative theoretical perspectives to make sense of punishment, penal trends, institutions and practices in peripheral settings, taking Latin American countries as its case studies.

This book investigates the penal culture in France and Germany – how it is shaped in politics, media, and public opinion. Although compared with the US or the UK, France and Germany seem to place a strong emphasis on the ideal of rehabilitation that would block excessive punishment and other outcomes of punitive developments in society, there is a steady increase in punitiveness over time for which the term “strained restraint” is proposed. The book shows that the idea of penal moderation is deeply rooted in public opinion, politics, and the media and that it is renegotiated every day in a dynamic interplay between these spheres. Punishment and society research has traditionally focused on the US and the UK. In comparative research, both are considered extreme in punitive developments with high rates of imprisonment and large groups of the population under penal control. The other extreme in comparative research would be Scandinavia with the famous Nordic Exceptionalism marked by low prison population rates. Germany and France are often considered to be “the same” when compared with each other, and “the other” with reference to both of these extremes. However, this book shows that France and Germany are far from being the same when it comes to state organization (centralistic vs. federal), criminal justice and the criminal law, political traditions, and the media. Also, research from both countries has looked at whether developments such as the “punitive turn” have occurred in Germany and France. Research focused on the domestic situation concludes that punitiveness is on the rise, and that both countries are indeed experiencing their own punitive turn. How do we reconcile these contradictory findings? Why do these two seem to follow the path of penal moderation in the overall outcome of punishment in society when we look at comparative research? And how is it that from a domestic perspective, punitive attitudes and desires are leading to more punitiveness? By focusing on the meso level, with a comparative perspective on the two countries and a dynamic analytical approach, this book reconciles the fluidity of individual attitudes and opinions with the relative stability of societal discourse. The authors posit that penal moderation comes at a price: overall and in an internationally comparative perspective, there is penal moderation, but a closer look at the domestic situation and development reveals that it is nonetheless challenged by a slowly rising tide of punitiveness. Going beyond the main tenets of punishment and society research with a dynamic analysis of two large societies in Europe, this book is ideal reading for scholars and students of penology, criminal justice, and European studies.

Narratives on Prison Governmentality explores prison governmentality through the analysis of letters of prisoners. The collection of testimonies represents the opportunities and difficulties of resisting in a place of power, which, in recent years, has become more sophisticated and effective. In recent years there has been a progressive individualisation of the prison population and a continuous erosion of solidarity. The condition of prisoners is influenced by renewed governmental logic that has become more effective for management and even reproduced by the prisoners themselves. Italian prison governmentality has been presented in its softest and hardest discursive forms and material regimes as part of a whole differentiated repertoire. Through the narratives of prison letters, the book shows the sophistication of these carceral logics from the perspective of prisoners engaged in the struggle. Engaging theories of carceral geography and critical criminology, the book focuses on space and time as the dimensions from which to observe power relations and governmentality. Narratives on Prison Governmentality will be of great interest to students and scholars of Penology, Narrative Criminology, Carceral Geography, and Critical Criminology.

Preventing Prison Violence introduces the idea of ‘prison ecologies’ – a multi-layered perspective to understanding prison violence as a ‘product’ of human, environment (social and physical), systemic, and societal influences – and how an ecological approach is helpful to prevention efforts. Interpersonal violence is a global concern and a significant cause of death around the world. In prisons, the human, financial, and health burden of violence presents a significant social issue – as well as a ‘wicked problem’ that does not permit of simplistic solutions. Recent innovations in data capture means that questions about violence, gang-affiliations, and prisons that could not be answered previously can now be explored. The central theme of this book is that prisons are ‘ecologies’ – spaces where people, resources, and the built environment are interrelated – and that violence is a product of a complex of interpersonal and environmental factors that increase the likelihood of assault – but also provide opportunities for solutions. Drawing on psychology, geography, indigenous knowledge, gang culture, and predictive modelling, this book expands beyond the conventional individual-focused ‘assessment-intervention-prevention’ approach to research in this field, towards a holistic and ecological way of thinking that recognises individual, organisational, and cultural factors, as well as the role of the physical environment itself in the facilitation and prohibition of aggression. Providing a comprehensive resource for those who are interested in making prisons safer; firmly based in contemporary research and theory, Preventing Prison Violence will be of great interest to students and scholars of Penology, Violence and Forensic Psychology, as well as to professionals working in criminal justice settings.

This book provides an analysis of how penal discourses are used to legitimate post-Cold War military interventions through three main case studies: Kosovo, Iraq and Libya. These cases reveal the operation of diverse modalities of punishment in extending the ambit of international liberal governance. The argument starts from an analysis of these discourses to trace the historical arc in which military interventions have increasingly been launched through reference to both the human rights discourse and humanitarian sentiments, and a desire to punish the perpetrators. The book continues with the analysis of practices involved in the post-intervention phase, looking at the ways in which states have been established as modes of governance (Kosovo), how punitive atmospheres have animated soldiers’ violence in the conduct of war (Iraq), and finally how interventions can expand moral control and a system of devolved surveillance in conjunction with both border control and the engagement of the International Criminal Court (Libya). In all these case, tensions and ambiguities emerge. These practices underscore how punitive intents were also present in the expansion of liberal governance, demonstrating how the rhetoric of punishment was useful in legitimating Western state powers and recomposing the borders of the liberal world at the periphery. War as Protection and Punishment ends with a number of critical comments on the diffusion of punitive discourse in the international arena, considering how issues of crime and justice have also animated, at least in part, the current engagement with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, politics and those interested in how penal discourses are used to legitimize military conventions.

High levels of remand or pre-trial detention (PTD) is a matter of growing concern in many countries, and at a European level. Despite being responsible for a significant part of the prison population, PTD practice is rarely the focus of criminological and criminal justice research. This book examines pre-trial detention practices and different ways of reducing its use across Europe. Offering a range of country-specific studies, this book also offers comparative studies of major issues across the continent. In particular, this book illustrates and examines how the actors (judges, public prosecutors, defence lawyers) work in pre-trial proceedings and make decisions; the common challenges in PTD decision-making; the factors which explain higher and lower rates of PTD across Europe; similarities and differences in practice; and the ways in which cross-border cases in Europe influence policy and practice. Offering suggestions and recommendations for how to bring down the use of PTD in Europe, this book is essential reading for all those engaged with European penal research and practice.