America is the most punitive nation in the world, incarcerating more than 2.3 million people—or one in 136 of its residents. Against the backdrop of this unprecedented mass imprisonment, punishment permeates everyday life, carrying with it complex cultural meanings. In The Culture of Punishment, Michelle Brown goes beyond prison gates and into the routine and popular engagements of everyday life, showing that those of us most distanced from the practice of punishment tend to be particularly harsh in our judgments. The Culture of Punishment takes readers on a tour of the sites where culture and punishment meet—television shows, movies, prison tourism, and post 9/11 new war prisons—demonstrating that because incarceration affects people along distinct race and class lines, it is only a privileged group of citizens who are removed from the experience of incarceration. These penal spectators, who often sanction the infliction of pain from a distance, risk overlooking the reasons for democratic oversight of the project of punishment and, more broadly, justifications for the prohibition of pain.

The statistics are startling. Since 1973, America’s imprisonment rate has multiplied over five times to become the highest in the world. More than two million inmates reside in state and federal prisons. What does this say about our attitudes toward criminals and punishment? What does it say about us? This book explores the cultural evolution of punishment practices in the United States. Anne-Marie Cusac first looks at punishment in the nation’s early days, when Americans repudiated Old World cruelty toward criminals and emphasized rehabilitation over retribution. This attitude persisted for some 200 years, but in recent decades we have abandoned it, Cusac shows. She discusses the dramatic rise in the use of torture and restraint, corporal and capital punishment, and punitive physical pain. And she links this new climate of punishment to shifts in other aspects of American culture, including changes in dominant religious beliefs, child-rearing practices, politics, television shows, movies, and more. America now punishes harder and longer and with methods we would have rejected as cruel and unusual not long ago. These changes are profound, their impact affects all our lives, and we have yet to understand the full consequences.

Against the backdrop of unprecedented mass imprisonment, punishment permeates everyday American life, carrying with it complex cultural meanings. This study shows how racial & class distinctions have become entwined with the distinctions between the punished & those who sanction, but do not suffer punishment.

Philip Smith attacks the comfortable notion that punishment is about justice, reason and law. Instead, he argues that punishment is an essentially irrational act founded in ritual as a means to control evil without creating more of it in the process.

Resource added for the Criminal Justice – Law Enforcement 105046 and Professional Studies 105045 programs.

This innovative introductory textbook to the growing field of cultural criminology examines the importance of understanding the cultural contexts in which crime and crime control take place. It describes and discusses the field's theoretical and methodological foundations, its links to other theoretical traditions, and its limits and criticisms. By exploring substantive areas such as crime in popular culture, deviance and social control, criminal justice and punishment, it demonstrates the utility of sometimes complex theory to core issues in criminology. Written in accessible language, this is the first text written specifically for a student audience, making it essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate modules on cultural criminology. Moreover, as it evaluates the connections of cultural criminology with wider theoretical developments, it will be ideal for broader courses on criminology, criminological theory and critical criminology. Finally, it will be of interest to anyone analysing contemporary issues and debates through a cultural lens.

Prison studies has experienced a period of great creativity in recent years, and this collection draws together some of the field's most exciting and innovative contemporary critical writers in order to engage directly with one of the most profound questions in penology - why prison? In addressing this question, the authors connect contemporary penological thought with an enquiry that has received the attention of some of the greatest thinkers on punishment in the past. Through critical exploration of the theories, policies and practices of imprisonment, the authors analyse why prison persists and why prisoner populations are rapidly rising in many countries. Collectively, the chapters provide not only a sophisticated diagnosis and critique of global hyper-incarceration but also suggest principles and strategies that could be adopted to radically reduce our reliance upon imprisonment.