Punishment and Sentencing uses a case study approach to bring to life our shifting attitudes to punishment, and its relationship to changing technologies and programs of control. The text identifies the key concepts of risk, rehabilitation and restitution to give students an accessible framework for understanding the different approaches taken, in theory and in practice, to sentencing and punishment.
Part 1: Introduction
1. It’s not just about the prison
Colonial Australia: a prison without walls
The birth of Australian prisons
Australia’s carceral archipelago
An‘other’ history of Australian punishment
Contemporary alternatives to prison
2. Penological Principles of punishment and sentencing
Bentham’s Utilitarianism and the end of transportation
Punishment and Reform – Offenders as broken machines
Incapacitation
Just Deserts and Retribution
Managerialism
Restorative Justice and communitarianism
Other innovations in justice
3. Some Social Perspectives on Punishment and Sentencing
Durkheim
Critical theory: Marxist, Feminist and Post-colonialism
Foucault: Discipline and Punish
Risk and governmentality
Elias
Part 2: Risk
4. Why Megan didn’t make it to Australia: Child Sexual Offences and Community Notification
Introduction
The problem: Child Sex Offending
Responding to Sexual Violence Offences Against Children
Australian Responses to Child sex offending
Penological principles: The utility of incapacitation?
Thinking theoretically: civilising vengeance
5. Terrorism: Risk, retaliation and preventive detention
The problem of Terrorism
Causes and responses
Responding to Terrorism in Australia
Penological principles: Pre-emptive prevention
Thinking theoretically: Risk and retaliation
Part 3: Rehabilitation
6. Drug courts: Clinic or Panopticon?
Alternative strategies in the unwinnable ‘war on drugs’
The Australian Alliance
Penological principles: Just treatment or preventive punishment
Thinking theoretically: The panopticon and beyond
7. ‘Possession is 9/10ths of the law’: Indigenous justice and the decolonisation of punishment
Indigenous people in the criminal justice system
Indigenous Justice Programs
Penological principles: the politics of partnership
Thinking Theoretically: The decolonisation of justice?
8. Responding to domestic violence: Special pleas and specialist courts
The problem with domestic violence
Responding to women as offenders: battered women’s syndrome
Responding to women as victims: Domestic violence courts and programs for men
Penological principles: Punishment and protection
Thinking theoretically: Feminism and its discontents
Part 4. Restitution
9. Youth Justice and Group Conferencing: Restoration and Restitution
A brief history of responses to young offenders
Australia as leader in Restorative Justice and Youth Justice Conferencing
Penological principles: Restoration or Restitution
Thinking theoretically: YJC as rituals of responsibilisation
10. ‘Hitting hoons where it hurts’: From fines to forfeiture
The problem of hooning
Penalties for traffic offences
Penological principles: deterrence, management and incapacitation
Thinking theoretically: Justifying ‘draconian’ penalty
11. The three ‘Rs’ of the penological
Melissa Bull: Lecturer, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University
