Punishment Rhetoric, Rule, and Practice

First published in 1989, Punishment examines the practice of punishment, not simply as a typical sanction employed by the state but as a pervasive feature of social organisation in both past and contemporary societies. With depth and rigour, they consider penal practice in a variety of historical and cultural contexts, such as the family, kinship and tribal groupings, small communities, educational institutions, the workplace and the commercial environment, criminal organisations, and the wider international community, as well as that of the state. In this way they widen the scope of the debate about the use of punishment as an instrument of human organisation, presenting different perspectives on the phenomenon of punishment and questioning the boundaries between different disciplines – juridical, philosophical, sociological, psychological and historical – within which the subject has been considered in the past. This book will be of interest to students and teachers of history, sociology, criminology, law, philosophy and psychology.