Masters of Social Sciences (M.Soc.Sc) in Criminology
First Semester 2011-2012
SOCI8004 Punishment and Society
(Tuesday, 6:45 – 9:45 p.m., Rm 1121, K.K.Leung Bldg.)
Dr. Børge Bakken (bakken@hku.hk)
The course aims to explain punishment and society in a comparative and historical
context. The social institution of punishment is a central object of social theory and in
many ways a mirror of society and its norms. Punishment, in other words, is far more
than a technical problem linked to certain institutions of crime control and prevention.
The course will look at the different functions of punishment, like retribution,
deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restoration. We will trace those
functions historically and culturally, finding vast cultural and social differences in the
way in which punishment is practiced. For instance, there is a vast difference in how
Americans and Europeans think about and practice punishment, and we even find
other approaches to punishment in the Islamic world and in China. The course will
start by looking at the popular opinions about punishment, reminding us that the issue
of punishment is both a normative and a scientific issue.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course students should be able to:
1. understand the differences between common sense approaches and scientific
evidence based approaches to the effects of punishment;
2. understand basic philosophical arguments about punishment;
3. learn how to see punishment in a comparative and historical context;
4. identify basic issues of rehabilitative and retributive approaches to punishment;
5. discuss basic issues concerning the death penalty.
Assessment:
A) I expect students to write a term paper of about 3000 words. Topics to be
discussed later (Do remember proper referencing!). 40 %
B) There will be the normal credit for performance, attendance and presentations in
class (I need a written script from the presentations, approximately one signed page
per person since all should participate in the group work). You are not supposed to
fail to attend more than three courses without due reason. (Repeated late arrivals and
early departures are not good for your overall performance evaluation). 25 %
C) There will be no formal exam for the course, but there will be an in-class test at the
end of the term. 35 %
Deadlines to be discussed.
Timetable and key text readings:
(There might be changes to be announced during the course)
I strongly recommend all the students to buy the main textbook used for the course:
Terance D.Miethe, Hong Lu, Punishment. A Comparative Historical Perspective,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
The Hong Kong University Bookstore price is: 224 HK$
"Institutions are never fully explicable purely in terms of their 'purposes'. Institutions
like the prison, or the fine, or the guillotine, are social artefacts, embodying and
regenerating wider cultural categories as well as being means to serve particular
penological ends. Punishment is not wholly explicable in terms of its purposes
because no social artefact can be explained in this way. Like architecture or diet or
clothing or table manners, punishment has an instrumental purpose, but also a cultural
style and an historical tradition". From David Garland, Punishment and Modern
Society: A Study in Social Theory, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995, p.19.
1st session
(8/9/2011)
Introducing the course
2nd session
(15/9/2011)
Punishment and Public Opinion. The Issue of Penal
Populism
* Julian V.Roberts, Loretta J.Stalans, David Indermaur, Mike
Hough, Penal Populism and Public Opinion. Lessons from Five
countries, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003. Chapter 1: Penal
Populism in context, and Chapter 2: Recent Penal Policy
Developments, pp. 3-34
* Erich Goode, N. Ben-Yehuda (1994) Chapter 2: ”Enter Moral
Panics” (excerpts), in Moral Panics: The Social Construction of
Deviance, Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 22-24
* Mayhew, Pat, and John van Kesteren. “Cross National
Attitudes to Punishment”, in Julian Roberts and Mike Hough
(eds.), Changing Public Views of Punishment, Willan
Publishing, Cullompton, Devon, 2003 Chapter 4, CrossNational attitudes to punishment, pp. 62-92
3rd session
(22/9/2011)
Philosophies of Punishment
* R.A.Duff and D.Garland, "Introduction: Thinking about
punishment", in Anthony Duff & David Garland, A
Reader on Punishment, Oxford Readings in Socio-Legal
Studies, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 1-44.
4th session:
(29/9/2011)
Comparative and historical approaches to punishment I
Punishment in China
*Terance D.Miethe, Hong Lu, Punishment. A Comparative
Historical Perspective, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2005, Chapter 1: Introduction: The Punishment
Response, pp. 1-15, Chapter 2: Punishment Philosophies and
Types of Sanctions, pp. 15-50 Chapter 5, The
History of Punishment in China, pp. 115-155,
* John Pratt, Punishment and Civilization, Introduction, pp. 110.
*Børge Bakken, "Moral Panics, Crime Rates, and Harsh
Punishment in China", in The Australian and New Zealand
Journal of Criminology, Vol. 37, Supplement 2004, pp. 67-90
5th session:
(6/10/2011)
Comparative and historical approaches to punishment I I
American Perspectives
*Terance D.Miethe, Hong Lu, Punishment. Chapter 4,
Punishment in American History, pp. 82-115
6th session:
(13/10/2011)
Comparative and historical approaches to punishment I II
Islamic Perspectives
*Terance D.Miethe, Hong Lu, Punishment. Chapter 6,
Punishment under Islamic Law, pp. 155-193.
7th session:
(27/10/2011)
Rehabilitation and General Prevention
*Thomas Mathiesen, Prison on Trial, Winchester UK,
Waterside Press, Third edition: 2006, Chapter 2: Rehabilitation,
pp. 27-54 and Chapter 3 Genereal Prevention, pp. 55-65
* R. Martinson, “What works? Questions and answers about
prison reform”, Public Interest, No.3, 1974, pp. 22-54
* Francis T.Cullen and Paul Gendreau, "Assessing Correctional
Rehabilitation: Policy, Practice, and Prospects", in Criminal
Justice, Vol. 3, 2000, pp. 109-175 (excerpts to be announced
later).
8th session:
(3/11/2011)
Deterrence and the Death Penalty
* Roger Hood, The Death Penalty. A World Wide Perspective
(3rd edition), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004, Chapter 7,
The Question of deterrence, pp. 208-232.
* Roger Hood, "From Restriction to abolition of the Death
Penalty: A Historical and Comparative Note", in 刑法泙論
(Xingfa pinglun) (Law Review), No. 3, 2004, pp.1-7.
* Gao Mingxuan, "On Chinese Legislation Concerning the
Death Penalty" (略談我國的死刑立法及其發展趨勢), in Zhao
Bingzhi (ed). The Road of the Abolition of the Death Penalty in
China), People's Public Security University Press, Beijing,
2002, pp. 23-30 (in Chinese pp. 15-20).
9th session:
(10/112011)
Incapacitation and the Prison
* Norval Morris and David J.Rothman, The Oxford History of
the Prison, New York, Oxford, Oxford Universty Press, 1995.
Introduction, pp. vii-xiii,
* Nils Christie, Crime Control as Industry. Towards Gulags,
Western Style, London, New York, Routledge, 3rd edition,
2000, Chapter 3, Penal Geography, pp. 25-39.
* Nils Christie, A Suitable Amount of Crime, London, Rotledge,
2004, Chapter 4, "Incarceration as an answer", pp. 51-66
*Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish. The Birth of the
Prison, Translated from the French by Alan Sheridan, Vintage
Books, New York, 1979, The Carceral, pp. 293-308, 324-25
* James D. Seymour, "Sizing up China's Prisons", in Børge
Bakken, Crime, Policing and Punishment in China, Lanham,
Oxford, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 141-167
10th session:
(17/11/2011)
Retribution and Restoration. The punitive and the NonPunitive
* Jon Elster, "Norms of Revenge", in Ethics, 100, 1990, pp.
862-885.
* John Braithwaithe, Crime, Shame, and Reintegration,
Cambridge, Cambridge Universtity Press, 1990, Chapters 5-7,
pp. 69-107.
* Nils Christie, A Suitable Amount of Crime, London, Rotledge,
2004, Chapter 6.4: "Abolish punishment?, 6.6: "Minimalism",
pp. 80-82, 85
11th session:
(24/11/2011)
Repeating central issues and problems
12th session:
(1/12/2011)
In-class test.