16: Punishment and Civilisation Pt. 2 Flashcards
an idealisation/fantasy of Western prisons
Wei getting information from Christian missionaries in HK - not disinterested social scientists
presentation of American penal systems and punishment is an idealisation/fantasy of what they ought to be, not what they were or how they operated in real life
broader effects from Wei
massive penal reforms within the justice system to decrease the use of capital/corporal punishment
civilisation increasingly became married to nationalism in Japan
Japanese expansionism during the mid-19th until the early or mid-20th century
history of SA
very early on, attractive target of European colonisation because of its strategic position between Europe, India and Asia
large parts fall under the control of the British in the early 19th century
conflicts intensity around the 1870s with the discovery of precious minerals
in 1931, formal full independence from Britain
- racial disparity still profound
in 1948, formal legalised segregation strengthened and expanded around SA
prisons in SA
initially brought by the British to control, suppress and exploit indigenous population of colonies
with formal independence, under apartheid, prisons used to protect the white minority population from supposed contagion or pollution from what was understood ideologically to be the pathological black population
white SA prisons largely treated as rehabilitation and potentially redemption, whereas black SA prisoners seen as incapable of institutional rehabilitation
the puzzle in SA
why is it that when conditions seemed ripe to roll back mass incarceration, incarceration rates have gone up?
moral reason
reasons grounded in morality as the basis for justifying continued mass incarceration
what did the government do to reforge SA’s identity?
chose to pursue an explicitly develop mentalist agenda as their main if not only priority
crime viewed as one of the largest threats so doubling down on incarceration to be viewed as taking crime seriously so more FDI flows
primary driver of crime (from the state’s perspective)
moral crisis/disintegration of the family
reification of the family
treating something that is abstract as though it were concrete and had a real existence
valorisation of a fantasy/ideal family which is the thing that supposedly produces good, law-abiding citizens
family is tied to the moral failure of the nation
the role of christianity
frames and informs the substance of the supposed crisis
circulation of redemption narratives - uniquely Christian idea that you can be saved by building a particular personal relationship with Christ
family that is put forward as the moral engine of creating upstanding citizens is specifically the Christian family
prison and the family
moralising rather than a serious ethic of care
prison as an institution is like a big family
- broader idea that prison is the remedy by creating a surrogate family where your family failed
resocialising troublesome children as opposed to confronting massive structural realities which frame/shape the situation of violent crime within contemporary SA
