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Why punishment pleases (and its use in today’s societies)

Dr Henrique Carvalho’s co-authored paper ‘Why punishment pleases: Punitive feelings in a world of hostile solidarity’, a collaboration with colleague Anastasia Chamberlen (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick), has been published in the international, peer-reviewed journal Punishment & Society.

The paper raises the possibility that the reason why we believe punishment to be useful, and why we are motivated to punish, is because we derive pleasure from the utility of punishment.

Simply stated, punishment pleases.

One of the main arguments in the paper is that a study of punishment says more about those who punish (including general members of society in whose name the state delivers punishment) than those who are punished.

Henrique Carvalho and Anastasia Chamberlen

“Anastasia and I started working together through a series of seminars we organised on ‘The Problem of Punishment’.

“We found we shared a concern over a limited understanding of punishment in society. We didn’t see enough engagement with the emotional dimension of punishment specifically,” explains Dr Carvalho.

“Our first collaborative paper, ‘Punishment, Justice and Emotions’ researching the various feelings around punishment, was published in 2016 by Oxford Handbooks Online.

“When seeking to understand the role of punishment in society, we need to also reflect on why we think punishment has a function to perform in society in the first place.

“Why have our societies been behaving in an increasingly punitive manner in recent years?

This new paper takes this research forward by reflecting on what is unique about punishment that makes people desire to pursue it, linking to real examples around recent political transformations in contemporary societies,” concludes Dr Carvalho.

Anyone studying the role of punishment in contemporary societies, and examining issues around punitiveness in contemporary legal and political discourse, will find valuable insights in this paper.

The ideas presented will also be advantageous to people working on challenging, criticising or reforming the criminal justice system.

Access the publication here.

Mon 27 Mar 2017, 09:41 | Tags: Publication, Research