Winner of the 1991 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Sociological Association Winner of the Outstanding Scholarship Award of the Crime and Delinquency Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, USA The first comprehensive account of the role of punishment in modern society, this book buils upon the work of Durkheim, Foucault, and others, and provides a fascinating interpretation of this complex social institution, showing how penal institutions interact with strategies of power, socio-economic structures, and cultural sensibilities.

David Garland , Reader in Law, University of Edinburgh

`This is a superbly intelligent study, without doubt the best yet written on a topic, penality, which the author has done so much to develop. Its comprehensive coverage makes it a genuine review of the field. Its clarity of style and exposition will make it an ideal undergraduate introduction to the subject. Its scholarship and incisiveness of judgement will make it a constant reference work for the initiated and its concluding theoretical synthesis will make it a challenge and inspiration for those undertaking research and writing on the subject. As a state of the art account it is unlikely to be bettered for many a year ... It is hoped that Oxford University Press will not wait long before publishing it as a more widely accessible paperback ... It is a notable achievement.' Rod Morgan, British Journal of Criminology