This book explores the origins of the so-called 'punitive turn' in penal policy across Western nations over the past two decades. It demonstrates how the context of neoliberalism has informed penal policy-making and argues that it is ultimately neoliberalism which has led to the recent intensification of punishment.

This book explores the origins of the so-called 'punitive turn' in penal policy across Western nations over the past two decades. It demonstrates how the context of neoliberalism has informed penal policy-making and argues that it is ultimately neoliberalism which has led to the recent intensification of punishment.

This book examines the impact of neoliberalism on society, bringing to the forefront a discussion of violence and harm, the inherent inequalities of neoliberalism and the ways in which our everyday lives in the Global North reproduce and facilitate this violence and harm. Drawing on a range of contemporary topics such as state violence, the carceral state, patriarchy, toxic masculinity, death, sports and entertainment, this book unmasks the banal forms of violence and harm that are a routine part of life that usurp, commodify and consume to reify the existing status quo of harm and inequality. It aims to defamiliarize routine forms of violence and inequality, thereby highlighting our own participation in its perpetuation, though consumerism and the consumption of neoliberal dogma. It is essential reading for students across criminology, sociology and political philosophy, particularly those engaged with crimes of the powerful, state crime and social harm.

The punitive turn of penal policy in the United States after the acme of the Civil Rights movement responds not to rising criminal insecurity but to the social insecurity spawned by the fragmentation of wage labor and the shakeup of the ethnoracial hierarchy. It partakes of a broader reconstruction of the state wedding restrictive “workfare” and expansive “prisonfare” under a philosophy of moral behaviorism. This paternalist program of penalization of poverty aims to curb the urban disorders wrought by economic deregulation and to impose precarious employment on the postindustrial proletariat. It also erects a garish theater of civic morality on whose stage political elites can orchestrate the public vituperation of deviant figures—the teenage “welfare mother,” the ghetto “street thug,” and the roaming “sex predator”—and close the legitimacy deficit they suffer when they discard the established government mission of social and economic protection. By bringing developments in welfare and criminal justice into a single analytic framework attentive to both the instrumental and communicative moments of public policy, Punishing the Poor shows that the prison is not a mere technical implement for law enforcement but a core political institution. And it reveals that the capitalist revolution from above called neoliberalism entails not the advent of “small government” but the building of an overgrown and intrusive penal state deeply injurious to the ideals of democratic citizenship. Visit the author’s website.

Reveals how liberal democracy and free-market economics reproduce the inequalities of apartheid in Cape Town, South Africa.

This collection of essays incorporates the insight of an international group of experts to explore the impact of neoliberalism within different organisational domains from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Examining neoliberalism in the context of political, social, economic and institutional domains, this volume promotes a critical and challenging approach to the social and economic attitudes characterising late-modern capitalism.

Neoliberalism remains a flashpoint for political contestation around the world. For decades now, neoliberalism has been in the process of becoming a globally ascendant default logic that prioritizes using economic rationality for all major decisions, in all sectors of society, at the collective level of state policymaking as well as the personal level of individual choice-making. Donald Trump's recent presidential victory has been interpreted both as a repudiation and as a validation of neoliberalism’s hegemony. Rethinking Neoliberalism brings together theorists, social scientists, and public policy scholars to address neoliberalism as a governing ethic for our times. The chapters interrogate various dimensions of debates about neoliberalism while offering engaging empirical examples of neoliberalism’s effects on social and urban policy in the USA, Europe, Russia, and elsewhere. Themes discussed include: Relationship between neoliberalism, the state, and civil society Neoliberalism and social policy to discipline citizens Urban policy and how neoliberalism reshapes urban governance What it will take politically to get beyond neoliberalism. Written in a clear and accessible style, Rethinking Neoliberalism is a sophisticated synthesis of theory and practice, making it a compelling read for students of Political Science, Public Policy, Sociology, Geography, Urban Planning, Social Work and related fields, at both the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.