Porous Penality and the Myth of Liberal Punishment: Lessons from South Africa

Gail Super

The British Journal of Criminology, 2024, vol. 64, issue 1, 107-123

Abstract: Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and punishment. The main argument I make is that state punishment is BOTH a violent and logically contradictory practice and that the state’s legal right to punish often spills over into extralegal penal violence, perpetrated by a range of actors against the racialized poor. I use the term penal violence to refer to all forms of violence which are aimed at enforcing law or punishing a perceived transgression of law or norms. The paper focuses on the infliction of penal violence in South Africa on/in three different scales and jurisdictions: Makwanyane and violence in prisons; police and prosecutorial violence; and extralegal civilian violence.

Keywords: Walter Benjamin; Punishment; Penal Violence; Racialisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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