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The myth of punitiveness

Roger Matthews
Theoretical Criminology 2005 9: 175
DOI: 10.1177/1362480605051639

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 Theoretical Criminology
© 2005 SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
Vol. 9(2): 175–201; 1362–4806
DOI: 10.1177/1362480605051639

The myth of punitiveness

ROGER MATTHEWS
London South Bank University, UK

Abstract
There is a widespread claim in the criminological literature that the
current period is characterized by a surge in punitiveness and that
this ‘punitive turn’ is fuelled by a new populism. However, the key
notions of ‘punitiveness’ and ‘populism’ remain largely undefined,
with the result that much of the associated analysis is vague, while
developments are often asserted rather than explained.
Consequently, there is a tendency towards empiricism, on the one
hand, and speculative idealism, on the other. It is not that one
cannot find examples of punitiveness but since the deployment of
punitive sanctions has historically been an endemic feature of the
criminal justice system we are faced with question of ‘what is new?’
In this article it is argued that there has been a one-sided,
exaggerated focus on punitiveness in recent times, which has
detracted from the development of a progressive realist account of
contemporary crime control.

Key Words
actuarialism • managerialism • populism • public
opinion • punitiveness • toleration

Introduction

The subject area of criminology has been characterized historically by

controversy and debate. However, over the past few years debate seems to
have given way to a loose-knit consensus. One of the main points of
consensus is the belief that we are witnessing a surge in punitiveness. In
fact, the claim that recent crime control policy is dominated by punitive

175

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176 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

mentalities seems to be overwhelmingly accepted by academic criminolo-

gists. There is a division between those who see this surge in punitiveness
being driven from ‘below’ by an anxious and angry general public and
those who see it as an essentially a ‘top–down’ process in which ambitious
and manipulative politicians play on public fears and anxieties in order to
get tough on crime and to increase their electoral support.
One of the initial contributors to this literature is Anthony Bottoms
(1995) who in an article on sentencing policy and the philosophy of
punishment outlines the notion of ‘populist punitiveness’, which he claims
is one of the main components of sentencing and penal policy alongside
concerns with human rights, community and forms of managerialism.
Significantly, however, it is in relation to ‘populist punitiveness’ that this
article and has been most frequently cited by criminologists.
David Garland (2001) has also incorporated the notions of punitiveness
and populism into his account of the changing nature of crime control in
contemporary society, seeing them as relatively autonomous but related
processes. Garland argues that there is now a relatively populist current in
penal politics such that the dominant voice of crime policy is no longer that
of the expert or even practitioners but the long-suffering and ill-served
public. Garland claims that we are witnessing a ‘punitive turn’, which is
responsible for promoting:
Harsher sentencing and increased use of imprisonment, ‘three strikes’ and
mandatory minimum sentencing laws; ‘truth in sentencing’ and parole
release restrictions; ‘no frills’ prison laws and ‘austere prisons’; retribution in
juveniles court and the imprisonment of children; the revival of chain gangs
and corporal punishment; boot camps and supermax prisons; the multi-
plication of capital offences and executions; community notification laws
and pedophile registers; zero tolerance policies and Anti-Social Behavior
Orders. There is now a long list of measures that appear to signify a punitive
turn in contemporary penalty.
(Garland, 2001: 142)

In a variation on this theme, John Pratt (2002) claims that populist

punitiveness is gaining ground and that a new axis of penal power has
emerged under the auspices of a neo-liberal political programme; ‘in which
the indifference of the general public is increasingly giving way to intoler-
ance and demands for still greater manifestations of repressive punishment’
(2002: 182). Pratt sees the process more in terms of an anxious public
placing increasing demands on a reticent state bureaucracy. Citing similar
examples as those offered by Garland, Pratt sees the introduction of chain
gangs, paedophile registers and new forms of stigmatization as disturbing
examples of the introduction of more ‘ostentatious and emotive’ forms of
punishment (Pratt, 2000).
Loı̈c Wacquant (2000), like Pratt, identifies neo-liberalism as a key factor
in encouraging the development of a more punitive response but presents a

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 177

more top–down approach. For Wacquant the rise in punitiveness is exem-

plified by the development of mass incarceration in the USA and in the
growing numbers of African Americans imprisoned. He argues that the
expanding prison has little or nothing to do with crime rates but has come
to replace the ghetto as an institution for containing and controlling lower
class African Americans as the penal management of poverty comes to
replace welfarism. The prison emerges as an institution of forced contain-
ment as a result of the crisis of the ghetto and as a device for caste control.
Between the prison and the ghetto it is claimed there is ‘a functional
equivalency, structural homology and cultural fusion, spawning a carceral
continuum that entraps a population of younger black men rejected by the
deregulated wage-labor market’ (Wacquant, 2001: 95).
Jonathan Simon (2001) offers a slightly different version of the punitive-
ness thesis. Like John Pratt, he is struck by the emergence of forms of
punishment that appear increasingly severe, anachronistic or stigmatizing
and which seem to signal either a new departure in the modality of
punishment or alternatively represent a return to outdated and outmoded
forms of punishment. The re-emergence of ‘boot camps’ with their empha-
sis on military discipline and strict regimes is presented as a prime example
of such a reversion (Simon, 1999). Like Wacquant, he sees penal measures
as being disproportionately directed at the poor and ethnic minority groups
creating a ‘revolving door’ whereby members of these groups pass re-
peatedly through the prison during the course of their life with devastating
consequences on individuals, families and neighbourhoods (Caplow and
Simon, 1999).
Simon also identifies what he sees as an even more disturbing develop-
ment in which some contemporary forms of punishment seem to go beyond
simple retribution and claims to protect the public or reduce crime to
involve forms of ‘cruelty’ where the objective is to take delight in the pain
of others. Punishment, Simon argues, has become a kind of ‘therapeutic
theatre’ in which the offender publicly expresses feelings of pain and moral
shame. Although not claiming that these manifestations of cruelty represent
a dominant feature of contemporary penalty, he sees these sentiments most
prominently expressed in capital punishment, extremely long ‘life-trashing’
sentences such as California’s ‘three strikes’ law and a variety of shaming
and stigmatizing measures. Simon does, however, claim that ‘governing
through crime’ is becoming a more pronounced feature of contemporary
society and that the engagement in cruelty may become a new kind of
entitlement distributed by government, as ‘the criminal’ becomes an in-
creasingly legitimate target of public hostility (Caplow and Simon, 1999).
Even from this very selective and brief dip into a growing literature on
punitiveness there are a number of issues that arise and which require
examination. First, the definition of punitiveness and its relationship with
other key concepts such as cruelty, vindictiveness and toleration. Second,
the question of aetiology, involving some consideration of the conditions

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178 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

associated with the emergence of punitiveness as well as the factors that are
seen as shaping its development. Third, the relation between punitiveness
and other dominant trends in penal policy such as managerialism, which
are seen to involve different and even oppositional currents. Fourth, the
role of populism in this process and its relation to politics, elites and
the role of experts. Fifth, the notions of public opinion and public attitudes,
which are often taken as key reference points for assessing changing levels
of public punitiveness. Finally, there is a question of empirical investigation
and the need to examine the degree to which this perceived rise in
punitiveness squares with the available evidence.

The concept of punitiveness

Although the term ‘punitiveness’ is widely used in the literature, there is

little attempt to define or deconstruct it. The consequence is that punitive-
ness remains a ‘thin’ and under-theorized concept. Its largely undiffer-
entiated nature and the general vagueness surrounding it, however, has not
been an impediment to its adoption. In fact, the general lack of specificity
seems to have contributed to its widespread acceptance since it appears at
first sight to have the capacity to ‘explain’ a whole range of penal
developments.
One of the few attempts to provide a ‘working definition’ of the term
‘punitive’ is offered by Stanley Cohen (1994: 67–8). He stresses that
punitiveness is characterized by coercion, formalism, moralism and the
infliction of pain on individual legal subjects by a third party. Interestingly,
his own vision of social control emphasizes the subtler, less visible and
discreet mechanisms through which control is realized in contemporary
society (Cohen, 1983, 1985). Cohen, like a number of other social control
theorists offers a more Orwellian vision, which dwells less on overt
strategies involving physical force or mental cruelty but on the development
of more continuous and less perceptible forms of regulation.
Since punitive and emotive sanctions in their various forms are an
enduring feature of penal policy the question that arises from Cohen’s
definition is ‘what is new?’ Do the range of sanctions identified by the
various commentators as examples of a ‘punitive turn’ really signal a new
departure or do they merely represent the phenomenal forms of an
increasingly elaborate, and complex system of regulation? Cohen’s defini-
tion also raises questions about the role of administrative controls as well
as forms of monitoring and surveillance, but before we attempt to address
some of these questions we need to return to the problem of definition. The
notion of punitiveness is most commonly associated with retribution and
vengeance. It is seen as essentially reactive rather than consequentialist.
However, when retribution involves the use of the least restrictive sentence

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 179

or strict proportionality and where the aim is to limit the severity and
duration of sanctions, it is not essentially an expression of punitiveness—
whether or not it achieves its desired objectives. At the same time,
sentencing strategies that are designed to protect the public through
incapacitation or deter would-be offenders may involve greater levels of
intervention, but such measures are not principally concerned with increas-
ing the degree of punishment inflicted on individuals per se, although they
may well involve greater numbers of people being subject to formal
intervention. In a similar way the pursuit of rehabilitative strategies can
lead to more prolonged and intensive forms of regulation. In the attempt to
do more good it is always possible, as critics have repeatedly pointed out,
to do more harm. Although it is often difficult to distinguish between these
different rationalizations in practice, it is necessary to differentiate, as far as
possible, between these different justifications for punishment, otherwise an
increase in the range and intensity of formal interventions—whatever their
underlying logic or objective—may be construed as an expression of
punitiveness (O’Malley, 1999).
The term ‘punitiveness’ normally carries connotations of excess. That is,
the pursuit of punishment over and above that which is necessary or
appropriate. It is therefore more than handing out ‘just deserts’. It involves
the intensification of pain delivery, either by extending the duration or the
severity of punishment above the norm. To put it another way, the notion
of punitiveness suggests a disproportionate use of sanctions and conse-
quently a deviation from the principle of proportionality. For this claim to
be upheld, however, it would be necessary to demonstrate that sentences
given for particular crimes or types of crime have increased, since without
any knowledge of the severity of the relevant crimes and the offending
histories of those involved, such claims have no basis. Indeed the separation
of a detailed consideration of crime and victimization and its relation to
punishment inevitably makes the sanctions imposed appear arbitrary.
This aspect of the definition also raises issues about changes in normative
expectations and changing public sensibilities. If, for example, a particular
type of activity such as domestic violence changes in public perceptions
from being a ‘private’ matter to one deserving of formal legal sanctions, as
long as the sanction directed towards offenders is widely seen as appro-
priate and not excessive, we cannot identify such a change as an example of
punitiveness. Legal categories are, of course, changing continually as are
processes of criminalization and decriminalization. There is also a gap
between ‘law in books’ and ‘law in action’ and between the passing of
legislation which is designed to be symbolic rather than practical. As we
shall see later a number of the sanctions, which have emerged in recent
years and which have been presented as examples of punitiveness, are
largely symbolic. To claim an increase in punitiveness, it is necessary to
distinguish between changing concepts of appropriateness and what con-
stitutes disproportionate or excessive punishments. At the same time we

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180 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

need to distinguish between those penalties, which have been introduced to

protect specific groups and those that involve the intensification of existing
sanctions.
In many versions of the ‘punitiveness thesis’ the use of custody is seen to
be a critical indicator. It is the strategy of punitive segregation, particularly
when linked to rising prison populations and increases in the lengths of
prison sentences that the case for punitiveness is seen to have its most solid
foundation. Within the logic of this position community-based sanctions
are seen as essentially non-punitive since they represent ‘alternatives’ to
custody. The critics of punitiveness often advocate the expansion of
‘inclusive’ community-based sanctions as a preferable option to incarcera-
tion. The fact that in both the UK and the USA the numbers of people
sentenced to community-based ‘alternatives’ has increased at the same rate
as incarceration over the past two decades—and in some cases faster—
suggests that we have seen a simultaneous expansion of both ‘punitive’ and
‘non-punitive’ sanctions (Caplow and Simon, 1999). This is not to mention
the rapid expansion of monitoring and surveillance strategies that are
neither inclusive nor exclusive but rather provide a range of measures,
which are generally seen as an alternative to punishment. We could also
make reference to the forms of ‘informal justice’ that developed during the
1980s and which have been reinvented under the rubric of restorative
justice (Matthews, 1988; Daly, 2002).
As a number of critics have pointed out, rather than informal or
restorative justice constituting an intrinsically progressive or a non-punitive
alternative to formal and segregative forms of control, they involve the
creation of a greater plurality of the sites of adjudication, which ultimately
serve to expand and enhance the existing system of crime control—
although involving the erosion of rights and legal safeguards (Santos, 1987;
Ashworth, 2003). In cases of ‘net widening’ or the formalization of
previously informal sanctions the use of ‘non-punitive’ measures may, of
course, involve the expression of more punitive responses.
It is noticeable how many commentators on social control play down
the ‘non-punitive’ developments within penal policy. In the same way we
tend to get very little critical commentary when the prison population
stabilizes or decreases, as it did in the UK in the late 1980s and as it has
done in other European countries over the past decade (Tonry, 2001). For
similar reasons the crime drop which marks one of the most significant
watersheds in the history of crime in living memory has received relatively
little attention from either criminologists or the media (Blumstein and
Wallman, 2000; Karmen, 2000). It is also the case that less than a decade
ago in England and Wales some 20,000 people a year were being in-
carcerated for non-payment of fines with approximately one in five of those
sent to prison each year being imprisoned for this offence. By the end of the
1990s the number had dropped to under 4000 as a result of concerted
efforts to divert this group from custody. This major change in penal policy

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 181

has hardly been remarked on in contrast to the extensive literature on the

rising prison population, and the development of ‘tougher’ sentencing
policies. In line with the media, many academics feel that only bad news is
worth reporting.
It is evident that in the discussions of changing penal policies there is
some slippage between those sanctions that involve an increase in pain
infliction and those that involve the emergence of ‘emotive and ostenta-
tious’ punishments. In a number of accounts these penal developments
blur into one another, such that increased use and length of prison
sentences, the re-emergence of shaming and stigmatizing sanctions, vigil-
antism and capital punishment become seen as related developments and as
part of a new ‘configuration’ of penal controls in which punitiveness and
vindictiveness play a leading role. Punitiveness and the reappearance of
certain emotive punishments are often seen as two sides of the same coin,
but since punishment has historically had an emotive and expressive
function it is not altogether clear what has changed in recent years.
Indeed, the division of sanctions into ‘punitive’ and ‘non-punitive’ is
itself too simplistic and does little to account for the diversity and variabil-
ity of penal developments. Neither is it adequate to locate the many
available sanctions along a continuum of punitiveness. Thus rather than
talk about penal sanctions as if they could be divided into two distinct
types, we need a conceptual framework for mapping the increasingly
complex and growing array of penal sanctions. To lump together boot
camps, paedophile registers, public forms of shaming and stigmatization,
imprisonment and the death penalty as examples of the development of a
new ‘field’ of penal sanctions obscures the diverse, uneven and contra-
dictory nature of penal processes (O’Malley, 1999).
We encounter similar problems with the term ‘bifurcation’. Seeing the
penal sphere as a twin track or bifurcated system with coercive and
segregative controls on the one side and inclusive community-based con-
trols on the other is too restrictive and loses a sense of the variability and
the growing complexity of regulatory strategies. If it ever was the case that
one could talk meaningfully of a twin track or bifurcated system, the
development of intermediate sanctions as well as the integration of sanc-
tions in the form of ‘seamless sentences’ or ‘sentencing packages’ is
increasingly eroding the distinction between inclusive and exclusive and
between community-based and custodial sanctions, while undermining the
notion of ‘alternatives’ to custody (Bottoms, 1995).
In many respects the notion of toleration, which appears frequently in
the literature, although also under-theorized, may be a more useful heu-
ristic tool to address some of these questions. Toleration is a more dynamic,
relational and less rigid term than punitiveness and carries within it an
element of tension and ambiguity, while suggesting a sense of limit rather
than outright condemnation of certain actions (Downes, 1988; Turner et
al., 1997; Hancock and Matthews, 2001).

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182 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

The aetiology of punitiveness

Although relatively little time and effort has been spent on identifying
precisely what is meant by punitiveness in the literature, slightly more
attention has been paid towards trying to identify the conditions of its
emergence and development.
There are, needless to say, considerable variations in the types of history
offered to account for the perceived surge in punitiveness. However,
following Foucault it has become fashionable to produce ‘histories of the
present’. These genealogies are thought to avoid the problems of deter-
mination, structure and agency, essence and appearance as well as the
vexed issue of causality. The processes that have been identified as playing
a key role in the rise in punitiveness are: the decline of welfarism with its
emphasis on needs and social inclusion; the demise of the rehabilitative
ideal as the leading rationale for punishment and imprisonment; the
‘disembedding’ of social relations; the growth of ‘ontological insecurity’;
the fragmenting of communities; growing individualism; the emergence of
new styles of managerialism as well as the advent of the ‘risk society’. Each
are seen individually or in combination to produce a (late modern) world
characterized by a growing sense of insecurity and anxiety among different
sections of the population. In this uncertain world, populist sentiments are
seen to veer towards the more punitive end of the spectrum, resulting in a
public and political shift to the right. In addition, the growth of the
mass media is seen as critical in fuelling public sentiments and creating
the conditions in which retribution and vengeance can more readily be
expressed.
There is a certain logic and prima-facie appeal about this type of
explanation. But the leap from changing social and structural conditions to
assertions of increasing punitiveness, however, is too swift and too un-
certain. It is not clear, for example, that all these processes are moving in
the same direction or that changes in social relations involved are neces-
sarily pushing towards an increase in the deployment of punitive or
emotive punishments. The same conditions might equally be expected to
create forms of withdrawal, fatalism or encourage a shift towards more
administrative or managerialist strategies in which moral sentiments and
the infliction of physical and mental pain are held to have a decreasing
significance.
Loı̈c Wacquant (2001) attempts to explain the rise in punitiveness and
the development of the growing racial disproportionality within a rapidly
expanding prison and carceral system, as a function of a number of
interconnecting factors including the decline of the Keynesian welfare state,
the advent of post-Fordism, the rise of neo-liberalism and the failure of the
ghetto to contain and control poor inner city African Americans. Conse-
quently, he argues there has been a shift from the social to the penal
treatment of poverty in the United States in which the prison has become a
substitute apparatus designed to keep poor African Americans ‘in their

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 183

place’. This structural functionalist account, however, fails to explain

specifically why these penal measures come to the fore in the current period
or why the prison should come to replace the ghetto as a prime site of
control. On the first count there are a number of advanced western
capitalist counties that have experienced a decline in welfare provision, a
transition to post-Fordism and the rise of neo-liberalism, but have not
experienced an increase in their prison populations. On the second count,
to see the ghetto and the prison as functionally equivalent is to lose a sense
of the specificity of place and of the social meaning and impact of different
forms of social exclusion. There is evidence of a growing proportion of
ethnic minorities in European prisons but there is no history of the type of
hyperghettoization that has been a feature of the American urban land-
scape in past decades (Albrecht, 1997).
There can be no doubt that all these structural factors are in play to some
degree but the point of analysis is to show the causal connections rather
than just assert or imply them. What at first sight looks like a sophisticated
historical and institutional analysis turns out on closer inspection to be a
rather crude form of mechanical functionalism that is underpinned by what
has been aptly described as a monochromatic politics (Anderson, 2002). In
this highly conspiratorial account there is little consideration of agency or
of the intra class and intra racial divisions that are to be found in deprived
inner city areas.
David Garland (2001) is less sanguine about the possibility of ‘reading
off’ changes in the nature of punitiveness from wider structural changes. In
fact, although he presents an account of international developments in
crime control he pays only passing attention to the substantial changes
which have taken place in productive relations in most advanced western
capitalist societies in recent years (Matthews, 2002). Instead, he argues, his
aim is to identify the distinctive elements that are able to transform
changing structural conditions into specific policy choices. A key factor in
this process, he suggests, is the changing attitudes and experiences of the
professional middle classes. Although different social groups have experi-
enced ‘ontological insecurity’ over the past two or three decades, it is the
educated middle classes and public sector professionals, he suggests, who
were once the key supporters of penal welfarism, but who have recently led
the drive towards increased punitiveness.
This is a novel but ultimately unconvincing explanation. Although there
can be little doubt that the educated middle classes have been ‘squeezed’
economically in recent years and increasingly exposed to crime both
directly and indirectly through the mass media, the evidence on the
changing distribution of victimization, in the UK at least, indicates that it
has become more concentrated and compounded among the poor and the
vulnerable (Trickett et al., 1992; Hope, 2001). It is the poor, the dis-
advantaged and marginalized who have borne the brunt of increasing job
insecurity, the breakdown of established communities and informal systems
of control. Significantly, in relation to the claim that the educated middle

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184 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

classes are becoming more punitive, Garland presents no real evidence of

such a change. Although citing public opinion polls as indicating a general
rise in punitiveness, he presents no substantive evidence of a shift in
attitudes among the specific group who he claims are the leading force in
this development.
If such a dramatic shift in the attitudes had occurred among the middle
classes, one might have expected that it would have been translated into
academic criminology. However, apart from very few American con-
servative criminologists the vast majority of professional criminologists
advocate a version of reductionism or abolitionism and remain deeply
wedded to some form of liberalism. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of
criminologists are not advocating more severe sentences or greater use of
incarceration. Instead, they see themselves as a corrective to the punitive
public and manipulative politicians. It is the tabloid press and their
impressionable readership together with unscrupulous politicians who are
repeatedly blamed for the recent changes in penal policy—not the readers
of the broadsheets.
Interestingly, social class features in a number of other accounts of the
emergence of punitiveness, although with a very different emphasis. In
contrast to Garland, for example, Bottoms claims that one of the distin-
guishing features of contemporary society is the relative decline of class as
a social differentiator and a growing emphasis on ‘citizens’ and ‘con-
sumers’, with notions of equality posed more frequently in relation to race
and gender and interest group politics.
John Pratt’s version of history, on the other hand, draws heavily on the
work of Norbert Elias, which emphasizes the leading role of the upper
classes in promoting the ‘civilizing process’. However, in Pratt’s analysis of
current developments he talks of the erosion of class solidarities and tends
to refer to the ‘general public’ and to ‘public opinion’ in shaping penal
policy and generating punitive populism. Following an Eliasean path,
Pratt’s analysis involves a combination of evolutionism, elitism and histori-
cism and most importantly it appears to have a limited explanatory
purchase on recent development in crime control (van Krieken, 1989;
Vaughan, 2000). The apparent rise in punitiveness is seen as something of
a reversal of the ‘logic of history’ or a decivilizing process; while ‘emotive
and ostentatious’ punishments as well as new forms of monitoring and
surveillance do not sit very comfortably on this Eliasean trajectory (Pratt,
1998). Indicatively, Jonathan Simon (2001) expresses serious reservations
about the explanatory value and relevance of Eliasean analysis, while
David Garland (1990) who had previously expressed support for this
approach seems in recent writings to find it much less convincing (Garland,
2001). Malcolm Feeley and Jonathan Simon (1992) see the class dimen-
sions of recent control strategies in distinctly different terms than these
other authors. For them, penal policy has being increasingly conditioned by
a growing division between mainstream society and the ‘underclass’ and in
risk society it is the marginalized and the disadvantaged who are seen as

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 185

increasingly the object of punitive penal sanctions. There is, however,

widespread recognition among historians that the modern prison has since
its inception in the 19th century been disproportionately concerned with
the imprisonment of the ‘lumpenproletariat’, the ‘dangerous classes’, the
poor and the feckless. Thus, the suggestion that under the influence of
actuarialism imprisonment is directed mainly at the underclass does not
appear to signal a significant change. At the same time, it is clear that the
prison has historically been directed primarily towards certain social
groups and specific individuals within them. Thus the claim that we are
moving from a focus on individuals to groups is difficult to sustain as is the
group/individual distinction itself in this context.
These various histories do not provide a consistent or convincing account
of the emergence and development of punitiveness and as John Braithwaite
(2003) has argued ‘histories of the present’ tend not to be interested in
those branches of historical development that die before the present. Also
in these ‘stories’ there is little discussion of the tensions, conflicts and
struggles over policy implementation and development. This is particularly
problematic, given the centrality of class in this literature. Consequently,
history becomes one-dimensional, and although we are repeatedly told
‘that it could have been different’ it is difficult to see from the sources given
how it could have been otherwise. There is a depressing sense of inevitabil-
ity embedded in the analysis since all roads, as it were, lead to the punitive
present. Thus what appears at first sight to be a liberal critique of existing
policies and practices can turn rapidly into a conservative defence of the
status quo. The vagueness which surrounds the concept of punitiveness is
compounded by forms of historical explanation that fail to identify the
specific mechanisms that might account for the ‘punitive turn’.
It might also be expected that since many of these attempts to identify
the historical conditions linked to punitiveness in ‘late modernity’ there
would be some engagement and examination of the wider structural
changes that have taken place in recent years associated with globalization,
the restructuring of labour market and the advent of the ‘information
society’. Although some authors pay lip service to these developments, and
make some reference to ‘structural’ change, the significance and impact of
these changes is often inferred rather than explained.

Punitiveness, managerialism and risk

The introduction of new styles of managerialism over the last two decades
and the role they have played in shaping the criminal justice system has
been widely reported (Brownlee, 1998; McLaughlin et al., 2001). These
forms of managerialism are seen as developing alongside punitiveness,
although they are often seen as contrasting developments involving differ-
ent and even oppositional dynamics. One of the modalities through which

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186 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

this new form of managerialism is expressed is through actuarial justice

based on risk analysis.
As Anthony Bottoms (1995) points out, there is a tension between claims
that we are experiencing greater levels of cruelty and punitiveness with its
emphasis on the intensification of morally charged and cruel forms of
punishment, on the one hand, and the simultaneous claim that we are
witnessing the ascendancy of actuarial justice which operates on a predom-
inantly administrative basis, presenting itself as morally neutral, on the
other. Thus the shift towards what Malcolm Feeley and Jonathan Simon
(1992) call the ‘new penology’ with its emphasis on risk analysis involves,
they argue, a significant shift not only in the language of penal policy but
also in its objectives and practices. Thus:
Government action against criminal activity even when mixed with tradi-
tional punitive functions, is increasingly subject to a different constitutional
standard because instead of emphasising the goals of public justice, it
emphasises the goals of risk management. It is preventive rather than
responsive. It seeks not to punish but to exclude those with criminal
proclivities.
(Feeley and Simon, 1994: 185)
This passage argues that traditional concerns and conceptions of crime and
punishment are giving way to strategies less concerned with individual
reform than with the management of certain groups and particular popula-
tions. This involves the adoption of impersonal administrative measures,
forms of systems analysis and utilitarian calculation. The aim, it is sug-
gested, is neither to punish or rehabilitate but to manage. From this
position there should be a relative decrease in levels of retribution and
expressions of vengeance, cruelty and punitiveness, which should increas-
ingly be replaced by more impersonal managerial strategies. But Feeley and
Simon (1992) claim that despite the advent of the ‘new penology’ that
punitiveness and cruelty are also becoming more prominent. Thus, at one
moment the ‘new penology’ is seen to be in the ascendancy and replacing
the ‘old penology’; at another it is seen to be providing the conditions for
its survival and expansion. Consequently, the terminology of the ‘new
penology’ and ‘old penology’ appears inappropriate—particularly when
this development is seen as involving a paradigm shift rather than serving
as a contribution to an increasingly diverse range of sanctions (Feeley and
Simon, 1994). Although there can be little doubt that forms of risk analysis
are becoming more prevalent in the criminal justice system, the logic of
actuarial justice does not adequately explain the perceived increase in
punitiveness, nor the widespread interest in restorative justice, nor the
growing emphasis on rehabilitation in its various forms, both inside and
outside prisons (Zedner, 2002).
Feeley and Simon (1992) try to square this circle by claiming that: ‘The
actuarial logic of the new penology dictates an expansion of the continuum
of control for more efficient risk management’ (p. 457). This claim raises a

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 187

number of further questions. First, it would be an overstatement to suggest

that risk analysis dictates an expansion of the control continuum, since
such an expansion was well underway before risk analysis rose to any level
of prominence. Second, it is also not clear why actuarial justice should
‘require’ such an enlarged cumbersome, expensive and often counter-
productive system of crime control. Why would neo-liberal governments
want to spend millions of dollars locking up minor offenders rather than
just leave them to their own devices in deprived inner city areas? Why move
them out of the ghetto into the prison?
Risk analysis in its various forms, however, is only one part of the penal
matrix and has gained ground mainly because it connects with certain
aspects of managerialism and because academic and political critiques have
been muted (Jones, 1996; Clear and Cadora, 2001; Silver and Miller,
2002). The fact that this pseudo-scientific enterprise masks a thinly veiled
moralism and subjectivism, while providing an extremely limited contribu-
tion to the enhancement of community safety, is coming to be recognized
by policy makers but only belatedly by criminologists (Hudson, 2003).
Jonathan Simon (1993) was among the first to point out that a major
contributor to the rise in the prison population in the USA in recent years
has been the spread of managerialist practices involving the imprisonment
of a significant number of parole violators. The fact that over 30 per cent
of admissions to state and federal prisons in the USA are parole violators is
extremely pertinent to explanations of the increase in the American prison
population (Petersilia, 2003). The implication is that if it were not for the
unanticipated consequences of adopting a more rigorous enforcement
policy in relation to violations of parole or the breach of the community
penalties, prison populations in the USA would be stabilizing or even
decreasing (Blumstein and Wallman, 2000). It also suggests that a consider-
able proportion of the growth of prison population is an unanticipated
result of more stringent management practices rather than a surge of
punitiveness. These forms of managerialism are not necessarily risk based.
They may have little or nothing to do with assessments of risk or actuarial
justice and more to do with the pursuit of performance indicators and a
more rigid commitment to the achievement of designated targets and
objectives.
Other evidence of a significant level of transcarceration has been pre-
sented in a recent report from Human Rights Watch (2003) who found that
state prisons in the United States are increasingly becoming a repository for
the mentally ill, with three times more mentally ill people in prison than in
mental hospitals. A further study by the Correctional Association of New
York (2003) found that half of the inmates in solitary confinement were
identified as seriously mentally ill, while a quarter in the highly disciplinary
lockdown system were found to be on the mental health caseload. There is
clear evidence of the prison system both failing to address the problems of
these inmates and in many cases making them worse. In relation to the UK
there is also no shortage of examples of prisons being used as repositories

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188 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

for the containment of those for whom the necessary welfare or medical
services are not available (Carlen, 1998; Birmingham, 1999). As disturbing
as these findings are, they indicate that a significant factor contributing to
the growth of the prison population is not just increased punitiveness
towards offenders but rather the widespread use of the prison as a dumping
ground for those for whom the state is unable or unwilling to provide
suitable care and support.
The spread of managerialism can also be seen as standing in opposition
to the focus on emotive punishments. The main shift in penal policy has not
been so much towards expressive and emotive punishments, but the
development of more administrative and impersonal styles of regulation.
Post-welfarism has been seen as ushering in ‘post-emotionalism’ with a
decreasing concern with the needs and mentalities of subjects and a focus
on new forms of behaviourism, monitoring and surveillance together with
a growing preoccupation with ‘what works?’ and a formal commitment to
the pursuit of evidence-based policies (Tilley, 2001).

Populism, politics and elites

The concept of punitiveness and the notion of populism as presented in the

recent criminological literature have two things in common—both are
under-theorized and both carry negative connotations. Populism is seen to
have come to the fore over the past two or three decades and to have
gradually displaced the professional elites who previously took responsibil-
ity for the development of penal policy (Ryan, 1999; Garland, 2001).
Populism is seen to fuel the ‘punitive turn’ because the public harbours
deep-seated punitive sentiments. These sentiments, it is argued, were once
kept in check by a benign and enlightened group of experts. However, in
recent years the general public have been able to express their views more
openly and influence the development of penal policy. Vigilantism and
public displays of hostility towards paedophiles, for example, are fre-
quently taken as indicators of a deep-seated public punitiveness. This thinly
veiled punitiveness, it is argued, is encouraged and fanned by the mass
media who are looking for scapegoats and suitable enemies on which to
direct their attention, stimulating public concern, thereby maximizing
viewing figures and newspaper sales.
In these depictions there is little recognition of the various forms which
populism can take and of its progressive as well as reactionary components.
As Margaret Canovan (1999) has argued, populism is not an intrinsically
‘backward’ or pathological form of political mobilization. Rather, it should
be seen as a shadow cast by democracy itself. Forms of populism that have
supported progressive politics are played down and the public is perceived
as a largely reactionary force harbouring resentments and animosities,
while the relation between populism and new social movements and
democratic politics is ignored (Arditti, 2003). Nor is there much discussion

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 189

of the ways in which populism has been mobilized to limit state oppression,
promote equality and defend human rights. As in the cases of Stephen
Lawrence and Rodney King, populist currents have played a critical role in
confronting injustice.
However, recognizing the very different political directions which popu-
lism can take is not to overestimate the role populism has played in shaping
penal policy. The general demands that members of the public may express
from time to time are filtered, shaped and moderated before they are
translated into penal policy. The complexities of policy formation are such
that it would be naive to attribute its development to crude populism.
Inasmuch as populism in its various forms plays a role, it tends to take the
form of what has been described as ‘ventriloquist’ populism, which in-
volves politicians speaking in the name of the people against sectional
interests (Jessop, 1988).
The suggestion that there has been a decline in professional experts
shaping and implementing penal policy is mistaken. There may be changes
in the composition of elites and those who formulate penal policy, but this
role remains largely in the hands of professionals and experts. Significantly,
risk analysis has been developed by professional elites despite the fact that
its language and practices do not resonate with the general public (Feeley
and Simon, 1994).
It may be the case that old-style bureaucratic elites have been displaced
to some extent by new forms of governance and new decision-making
bodies. It is far from certain, however, that these new bodies are any more
accountable or accessible than previous administrations. What is clear is
that within a continually expanding criminal justice system we have seen a
proliferation of all kinds of experts who are both able to influence policy
making and mediate public demands. These include not only the estab-
lished experts such as psychologists, sex therapists, drugs counsellors and
educationalists, but specialists who are preoccupied with much wider
considerations related to different aspects of lifestyle. Moreover, architects
and designers, environmentalists, city planners and other professionals who
previously had little interest in these matters, now play an increasingly
central role. In addition, the proliferation of multi-agency partnerships
means that a diverse range of agencies now have a stake in the development
of crime control policy and practices. The fact that many of these experts
wear jeans and trainers instead of suits and ties does not make them any
less expert or any less influential (Cohen, 1994).
In political terms it is the rise of neo-liberalism and the drift towards the
right of the political spectrum that is seen to explain the ‘punitive turn’.
Reagan, Thatcher and Bush are seen to be the prime movers in this process,
followed closely by Clinton and Blair who in an effort not to be outdone by
their political opponents express similar punitive sentiments. There is, of
course, an element of truth in this proposition, but presenting all these
political leaders and their parties as promoting different varieties of
‘populist punitiveness’ occludes more than it explains.

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190 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

Despite all the ‘get tough’ rhetoric and the focus on ‘law and order’
during the Thatcherite 1980s, the number of people sent to prison annually
at the end of the decade was less than in 1980. Moreover, the average daily
prison population fell towards the end of the 1980s. During that decade
two conservative Home Secretaries introduced early release schemes, which
freed thousands of prisoners. It was also during the same period that we
saw a remarkable reduction in juvenile decarceration, as the juvenile
delinquent became a ‘scarce resource’ in the UK (Pratt, 1985; Graham,
1989). Like good monetarists the Thatcher government realized that the
prison was ‘an expensive way of making bad people worse’. At the same
time they engaged in a major prison-building and refurbishment pro-
gramme, which involved an overall improvement in the conditions in many
prisons, and the virtual end of slopping out. The 1980s also witnessed the
beginnings of a series of television programmes on life and conditions in
prisons, which provided a new level of awareness and information about
the previously closed world of imprisonment.
It was not until the early 1990s that the prison population in England
and Wales began to take off. Although there was some continuity between
the ‘get tough’ policies of the Conservative government and the incoming
‘tough on crime’ New Labour government, there can be little doubt that the
crime control policies developed under New Labour express diminishing
support for the use of incarceration. To represent current penal policy
predominantly in terms of punitiveness involves a failure to appreciate the
diversity and ambiguity of recent government policy (Crawford, 2001).
There are mixed messages and competing imperatives emanating from
official sources. At one moment there is talk of diversion and decarceration
and at another the more rigorous enforcement of sanctions. For example,
the Halliday Report embodies a number of apparently conflicting aims and
argues simultaneously for the pursuit of uniformity and flexibility, rigidity
and discretion while advocating both expediency and social justice (Home
Office, 2001).
Even a cursory examination of recent government publications in Eng-
land and Wales on sentencing and penal policy indicates the growing
antipathy towards prison expansion and general recognition of the con-
sequences of imprisonment on individuals, families and neighbourhoods. A
central and recurring theme in recent official documents is the notion of
social exclusion (see Young and Matthews, 2003). The influential report,
for example, by the Social Exclusion Unit (2002) on ‘Reducing Re-
offending by Ex-prisoners’ expresses the view that while imprisonment may
be justified for serious, violent and persistent offenders, that for many of
those currently imprisoned, incarceration serves to compound a history of
exclusion.
A growing number of official reports published in the UK over the last
few years could have been drafted by 1980s radical or critical
criminologists—and some have. Recent proposals to limit the size of the
prison population include the decarceration of offenders serving sentences

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 191

of less than 12 months, the expansion of early release programmes and the
introduction of intermittent custody. There is a continued formal emphasis
on using prison as a last resort when other sentencing options have been
exhausted. The tone of these government publications on prisons and penal
policy is generally defensive and at times apologetic. Imprisonment is not
heralded as a positive option but as a necessary evil (Morris, 2004).
As Mick Ryan (1999) has suggested the nature of populism under New
Labour is significantly different than the forms of populism that were
established under Thatcherism. Under New Labour, individuals and com-
munities are seen to have a duty to participate in crime reduction and
contribute to the creation of safer communities. This emphasis on civility
should not be dismissed as merely a ‘responsibilizing strategy’ but should
rather be seen as an attempt to extend participatory democracy and to
increase public involvement in policy making. Widening the level of active
participation in policy making could encourage a greater degree of modera-
tion into debates about crime control, not less (Johnstone, 2004).

A note on public opinion

The notion of public opinion is a central reference point in the punitiveness

literature. However, as has often been pointed out there is always a danger
that rather than report it, social scientists construct it (Osborne and Rose,
1999). Many of these studies fail to distinguish clearly between different
aspects of ‘public opinion’ such as knowledge, attitudes and sensibilities,
nor do they explain why people hold certain opinions and how strongly
they adhere to them (Durham, 1993; Hancock, 2004).
Rather than demonstrate a drift towards punitiveness, surveys of public
attitudes on sentencing and punishment have repeatedly shown that re-
spondents support multiple sentencing goals. Expressions of retribution
coexist alongside support for rehabilitation as well as other sentencing
options. Citizens advocate a more balanced approach to crime, involving a
mixture of punishment, rehabilitation and public protection (Cullen et al.,
2002). Data collected by Russell and Morgan (2001) for the Home Office
Sentencing Review found little evidence that the public want a tougher
probation service. Instead, they want an effective service that reduces the
likelihood that those on probation will re-offend. It was found that:
The most common responses by members of the public to the open-ended
question: ‘What should sentencing achieve?’ do not include the words
‘punish’, ‘deterrence’ or ‘rehabilitation’. Terms generally taken to summarise
the objectives of punishment. The most common responses are ‘stop offend-
ing’, ‘reduce crime’ or ‘create a safer community’ without any articulation as
to how sentencing might achieve this outcome. People are generally not
wedded to a particular philosophy of punishment; they just want something
done which changes offenders’ behaviour.
(Morgan, 2002: 221)

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192 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

John Doble (2002), a leading American researcher in this field, claims that
because of the concentration on the punitive elements of public attitudes
and a lack of appreciation of the diversity and variability of these views,
‘public opinion was misread by pundits and political leaders’ (p. 149). He
cites evidence that the emphasis is shifting away from long prison sentences
towards prevention and rehabilitation. Nevertheless, the mutual cross-
referencing and largely uncritical commentary by numerous criminologists
has helped to reify ‘punitiveness’ as a social fact. Unfortunately,
Once constructed, social realities are difficult to deconstruct. In the United
States the widely held view that the public is exclusively punitive potentially
constrains the pursuit of progressive policy alternatives in many jurisdic-
tions. Politicians and other policy makers woefully and persistently mis-
perceive public views on crime control.
(Cullen et al., 2002: 143)
For some commentators, such as Jonathan Simon, the drift towards more
punitive and vindictive penal policies is seen as a reflection of a more basic
change in public attitudes. However, there is another contrasting current
that has gathered momentum in the UK in the post-war period, which
involves a growing intolerance towards most forms of interpersonal vio-
lence. Thus domestic violence which was endemic but largely ignored until
the 1970s, rape within marriage, racial attacks, child abuse, hate crimes,
bullying as well as various forms of harassment and intimidation have
increasingly become a cause of concern and the focus of intervention. There
is also increasing opposition in the UK to parents disciplining their children
by hitting or slapping them. In fact there has been something of a ‘silent
revolution’ in social attitudes towards interpersonal violence over the past
20 or 30 years, but this history is still waiting to be written.

Assessing the empirical evidence

It is often suggested, or at least implied, that the rising prison population

during the 1990s, especially in a period of declining crime rates, can be
attributed to a surge in punitiveness, whether populist or not. Levels of
imprisonment, however, can be influenced by a variety of factors including
changing demographic profiles, differences in the distribution of crime and
victimization, clear-up rates, conviction rates, the availability and use of
non-custodial sanctions as well as by the deployment of early release
mechanisms (Zimring and Hawkins, 1991). The influence of these factors
would need to be assessed before any claims that the increase in the prison
population is a function of punitiveness. Otherwise, such claims remain
purely speculative and gravitate towards empiricism.
As for the various examples of punitiveness that have been repeatedly
presented in the literature, the available empirical evidence suggests that
either they are limited in space and time or alternatively they are more
symbolic than real. If we look at the ‘three strikes’ laws, presumptive and

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 193

mandatory sentencing, for example, we find that their impact has been
considerably less than expected. Despite all the publicity and predictions of
spiralling prison populations in the USA, the ‘three strikes’ laws have had
much less impact on courts, local jails and state prisons, with the exception
of California than anticipated (Shichor and Sechrest, 1996). Their impact
was largely symbolic and when implemented only tended to consolidate
existing legislation (Austin et al., 1999).
There has been little interest in presumptive sentencing outside of the
USA and although there has been some discussion in the UK no guidelines
have been adopted. Similarly with mandatory minimum laws there are,
even in the USA, broad exception clauses that enable judges to impose
some other sentence (Tonry, 1999). Over the last few years, 25 states have
abolished mandatory minimum sentencing laws, accelerated parole, in-
creased prison ‘good time’ and diverted offenders into treatment (Greene,
2003). In England and Wales only eight burglars have been sentenced to the
minimum three years under the provisions introduced by Jack Straw in
2000. Similarly, the minimum mandatory sentence of seven years for a
third drug trafficking offence has only been used in England and Wales
three times since its introduction (Travis, 2003). Thus it would seem that
members of the judiciary simply do not implement sentencing policies they
deem to be inappropriate.
While boot camps became increasingly popular in the USA during the
1990s, only one experimental institution for young people based on this
model was introduced in Britain. This pilot project was set up in Colchester
in 1996 by Michael Howard. It was, however, closed by the Labour
government in 1998 even before it had been fully evaluated. Opposition to
this experimental establishment not only came from politicians but from
prison governors, prison reform groups and even the army. The formal
reason given for the closure of the establishment was that it was too
expensive and did little to reduce re-offending rates (Farrington et al.,
2002).
While there has been much talk about ‘austere’ and ‘no frills’ prison
regimes, it is the case that in the UK at least that prison conditions have
generally improved over the past two decades particularly in relation to
sanitation, diet and health provision. More treatment, recreational and
educational programmes have been developed along with efforts to allow
prisoners more time out of their cells in some prisons (HM Inspectorate of
Prisons, 2003). Significantly, there have been a growing number of cases in
recent years in which prison guards have been suspended or dismissed for
brutal behaviour towards inmates in England and Wales and there has also
been a growing concern with the victimization of prisoners (Dodd, 2001).
It is possible that these reports reflect growing levels of prisoner abuse and
violations of rights but it also suggests that there has been a change in
official responses towards the treatment of prisoners and that claims of
mistreatment and victimization are more likely to be taken seriously.

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194 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

The old Victorian local prisons in the UK, however, remain bleak and
often the most overcrowded institutions. However, despite these ‘penal
dustbins’ even the most ardent critics of imprisonment in the UK have had
grudgingly to acknowledge that there have been some significant improve-
ments in prison conditions in recent years. In the ‘new design’ prisons the
emphasis has been on reducing staff numbers, increasing surveillance and
the development of automated functions. What most prisoners in these
institutions find troubling is not so much the brutality of the guards but the
long periods of time they are confined to their cells and lack of personal
contact.
Much has been made of the campaigns that have been conducted and
legislation that has been passed to address the issue of paedophiles.
Continual reference is made to events at Paulsgrove in 2000. This ‘moral
panic’ was, however, relatively short-lived, despite the concerted efforts of
the tabloid press to perpetuate and heighten public concern. There has been
relatively little discussion of this issue in the UK over the past few years and
it seems to have slipped down the social and media agenda. In a similar
way the often-cited reappearance of ‘chain gangs’ seems to have been
limited to certain southern states of the USA and appears to be an
idiosyncratic and short-lived policy.
The increased use of the death penalty in the USA is understandably seen
as an indication of public punitiveness and sense of cruelty. However, there
are indications that growing support for greater use of the death penalty in
the USA during the 1990s is beginning to wane. New legislation has been
put forward in a number of states, following growing concerns about
wrongful convictions. The influential American Bar Association (ABA)
adopted a resolution in 1997 setting out guidelines to minimize the risk of
innocent people being executed and in 2000 the incoming president of the
ABA issued fresh calls for a moratorium on executions. The American
Psychiatric Assembly has also called for a moratorium and this initiative
has gained support from church groups. Indicatively, the number of
executions carried out in the United Sates has fallen sharply over the past
3 years from 98 in 1999 to 66 in 2001 (Hood, 2002; Lilly, 2002). In the
UK, however, there is a different climate. Debates around the death penalty
surfaced in the 1980s but never really looked like gaining sufficient support
to justify its reintroduction. Over the past decade there has hardly been any
serious reference to the possibility of bringing back the death penalty in the
UK even following the much publicized Bulger case, the revelations regard-
ing the activities of Harold Shipman, the most prolific serial killer in history
or the Soham murders. What has been most remarkable is that despite a
series of extremely brutal and high-profile murders just how tolerant the
general public have been.
The introduction of ‘zero tolerance’ policing in the UK was also short-
lived. As in the USA, the extent of its adoption and implementation was
never clear (Stenson, 2000; Braithwaite, 2003). The term ‘zero tolerance’ is
something of a misnomer and is more accurately described as ‘selective

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 Matthews—The myth of punitiveness 195

intolerance’ since policing invariably involves selectivity and discretion.

Where ‘zero tolerance’ policing has been introduced in the UK, it has
resulted in a high level of complaints against the police and in one case the
removal of the senior police officer most closely associated with this
approach. In its place more community-based, problem-orientated policing
and privatized forms of patrolling have gained prominence.
In the Republic of Ireland many of the changes, which are held to signal
a dramatic transformation in crime control policy, have also not taken
place. Reference to the death penalty has been deleted from the Irish
constitution and there is no ‘perpetual sense of crisis’. There never was a
decline in the rehabilitative ideal, while retribution has not emerged as a
generalized policy goal. Instead, it has developed a crime control policy,
which as in many other countries is variable and volatile (O’Donnell and
O’Sullivan, 2003).
Even a brief review of the empirical evidence that has been presented in
the literature does not provide a convincing case to support the claim that
punitiveness has played a central role in recent developments. The Amer-
ican evidence is stronger but punitiveness is much less pronounced than
many criminologists suggest. There are clear indications of American
exceptionalism, but various authors in their attempt to say something
profound about ‘late modernity’ want to portray these developments as
having international significance (Zimring, 2001; Young, 2003).

Conclusion

It is not difficult to find examples of the development and implementation

of punitive strategies but there is a question determining the relative
significance of such strategies in contemporary society. Since punitive and
emotive strategies have historically been an endemic feature of crime
control policies there is a need to explain what is new. It has been suggested
that most of the examples of punitiveness that have been presented in the
literature either represent more extreme and exceptional developments and
that most are limited spatially or temporally. Punitiveness and related
concepts are poorly theorized and the histories that are presented are
selective and unconvincing, while critical connections tend to be assumed
or asserted rather than explained.
There is a preoccupation with limited oppositions and polarities that fail
to do justice to the diversity, contradictions, reversions and tensions in
current crime control policy. In this twin-track, bifurcated and zero-sum
world of punitive versus non-punitive, inclusion versus exclusion, popu-
lism versus elitism, ‘new’ versus ‘old’ penologies, ‘civilizing’ versus ‘decivil-
izing processes’, we are in danger of becoming lost in a series of false
dichotomies.
Although there is a promise of something radical and new here, most of
these accounts oscillate between liberal humanism and pessimism, and at a

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196 Theoretical Criminology 9(2)

certain point are in danger of dissolving into conservatism. There is no

viable strategic or political programme that follows from these accounts.
Rather, there is an overriding sense of fatalism and inevitability. Their
ultimate limitation is not only that they present one-sided, exaggerated or
mythical accounts of the development of crime control but that these
various approaches do not provide us with the conceptual tools by which
we could realistically address these issues.
The failure to disentangle both conceptually and empirically the con-
stituent elements of ‘punitiveness’ has led a number of criminologists to see
the recent expansion of the crime control industry as a function of the
desire to ‘get tough’. Rather than seeing the growing array of agencies and
institutions with their different roles, discourses and specialisms, as part of
an increasingly complex, opaque and expanding network of crime control,
involving a diverse range of interventionist strategies. Consequently, there
is a tendency to reduce these developments to an underlying punitiveness or
populism, or both.
If the argument that the preoccupation with punitiveness is overplayed is
valid, then we are left with the problem of explaining why so many
criminologists and penal reformers have embraced this essentially voluntar-
istic and phenomenalist conception of penal development. It is not too
difficult to see why penal reform groups find this type of explanation
attractive, since it gives them the opportunity to present themselves as
limiting the excesses of malevolent politicians on the one hand while
educating a misinformed public on the other. Academic criminologists are
also able to make similar claims while gaining the benefits that come from
the belief that they occupy the moral high ground. However, the dispropor-
tionate focus on punitiveness may well reflect changing social sensibilities
and a growing ambivalence towards the use of punitive sanctions—
particularly segregative measures. Thus, rather than being in the ascend-
ancy, punitive and emotive sanctions may in reality be becoming
increasingly untenable.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lynn Hancock, Phil Carney, John Pitts and the journal’s
reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this article and for their
helpful suggestions.

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ROGER MATTHEWS is Professor of Criminology at London South Bank

University. Research interests include prisons and penal policy, violent crime
and prostitution. He is the author of Doing Time: An Introduction to the
Sociology of Imprisonment (Palgrave, 1999).

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