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Against Prisons: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen
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Klaus Günther (2002: 218) resumes the core significance of punishment as being a public declaration that a certain event was an injustice perpetrated by individuals, and that this injustice is not and will not be tolerated by the community. This declaration, according to Günther, has three addressees (1) the victim (who is reassured that the community does not regard his harm as simply bad luck or fate, but as the result of unjustified and untolerated actions), (2) the offender (who is told that his actions are seen as responsible for that what happened and that his behaviour is seen as strongly reprehensible), and (3) the general public (who is being told that the negative consequences are being defined not as accidental, but as an injustice that cannot be tolerated and that this injustice is neither to be blamed on the victim nor on the public). | Klaus Günther (2002: 218) resumes the core significance of punishment as being a public declaration that a certain event was an injustice perpetrated by individuals, and that this injustice is not and will not be tolerated by the community. This declaration, according to Günther, has three addressees (1) the victim (who is reassured that the community does not regard his harm as simply bad luck or fate, but as the result of unjustified and untolerated actions), (2) the offender (who is told that his actions are seen as responsible for that what happened and that his behaviour is seen as strongly reprehensible), and (3) the general public (who is being told that the negative consequences are being defined not as accidental, but as an injustice that cannot be tolerated and that this injustice is neither to be blamed on the victim nor on the public). | ||
In the course of history, punishment has played a central role ever since the emergence of proto-states, and the function of symbolic reprobation has been associated with certain forms of hard treatment. For a long time, public executions were the most conventional symbols of symbolic reprobation. Later on, the prison assumed this role. There is no natural law that can prevent coming changes. Other forms of hard treatment will become conventional expressions of symbolic reprobation | In the course of history, punishment has played a central role ever since the emergence of proto-states, and the function of symbolic reprobation has been associated with certain forms of hard treatment. For a long time, public executions were the most conventional symbols of symbolic reprobation. Later on, the prison assumed this role. There is no natural law that can prevent coming changes. Other forms of hard treatment will become conventional expressions of symbolic reprobation in the future. | ||
The relativity of crime (what used to be a clear hanging matter some centuries ago can be an accepted lifestyle option today) does not make punishments go away. It just moves punishment from one | The relativity of crime (what used to be a clear hanging matter some centuries ago can be an accepted lifestyle option today) does not make punishments go away. It just moves punishment from one behavior to others, newly criminalized ones (e.g. from being gay to anti-gay discrimination). Punishments do change. What does not change is the function of punishment as a symbolic reprobation of the respective punishable acts. | ||