engleski

Governing Through Crime: Response to the Crisis or a Part of the Crisis?

Why penal policy becomes so important in contemporary governing of societies? Why are punishments generally becoming starker and more proliferated and prisons overcrowded, while at the same time cutting down of the public sector budgets is launched as a political imperative of the new austerity? Is penal policy a logical response to the crisis that naturally involves rise in various types of crime and creates new offenders, or is it a part of the crisis itself? In other words, could it be that inflated and far reaching penal policy forms an essential part of a new type of governance, strongly suggesting decadence of contemporary politics – governance that is eager to replace former visions of development with the mix of penal populism and penal elitism and different ideological searches for scapegoats? In my presentation, I try to answer some of these questions with references to global and comparative context and especially by probing contemporary penal policy making in Croatia. Firstly, I briefly explain the concepts of penal policy and governing through crime, a concept developed by Jonathan Simon in the context of contemporary penal policy developments in the USA. Then I embark to analyze recent penal policy developments in Croatia with the help of Simon’s concept with the focus on governing gender relations, families and schools. Finally, I conclude by offering theoretical and political interpretations of these developments in the context of crisis of politics.

governing through crime; crisis of politics; Croatia

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