David S. Fonseca

Expansion, standardization, and densification of the criminal justice apparatus: Recent developments in Brazil:

The democratic transition in Brazil witnessed the return of civil liberties and the emergence of a legal framework based upon respect for human rights and the adoption of extensive social entitlements. In recent years, the reduction of poverty and upward social mobility have also transformed the country’s social structure. In spite of these welcome changes, however, crime and prison rates went through a steep upsurge during the same period, undermining many of these more positive social changes. A number of reasons underlie the emergence of this predicament, ranging from large structural shifts to the piecemeal adoption of harsher criminal laws. Enmeshed in these developments nonetheless there is also important institutional modifications in the configuration of the criminal justice system. The present argument seeks to understand how the recent thrust in the modernization of state institutions helped to create this situation of crisis. The expansion, densification, and standardization of the criminal justice apparatus has prompted its greater effectiveness and, thus, contributed to the current predicament of high crime rates and mass incarceration in the country.

Reimagining the sociology of punishment through the global-south: postcolonial social control and modernization discontents:

Traditional theoretical accounts in the sociology of punishment largely overlook the situation of crime control and mass incarceration outside Western democracies. In this sense, their explanatory power has a limited reach. It is fundamental to engage with different contexts for expanding the scope of this transdisciplinary field, while also rethinking its foundational canons. By thinking through the global-south, the present argument advocates the development of a decentred perspective to punishment and crime control. In a two-pronged approach, the article argues that peripheral countries have attempted to modernize their criminal justice apparatuses, while social control in Western democracies has increasingly adopted postcolonial features. The aim is not only to expand this scholarship by encompassing more diversity, but also to refine existing accounts through insights from other realities.

Punishment at the Margins: Groundwork for a Revisited Sociology of Punishment

The enterprise of the sociology of punishment rests on a reassessment of modern social theory and an appraisal of changes in patterns of crime and punishment in recent years. The emergence of a Southern criminology indicates, though, the need for repositioning knowledge production in the field of crime and crime control to include broader perspectives and theoretically accommodate new realities outside mainstream academic production. The same effort needs to address the specificity of punishment and imprisonment in this broader context. The aim of the present argument resides, thus, in developing new underpinnings for the sociology of punishment, in which the historical roots of the so-called peripheral spaces are taken seriously in their complexity and distinctiveness.