Constitutive Penology

Constitutive penology is an extension of post-modernist constitutive criminological theory. Its proponents argue that societal responses to crime are interrelated with the wider society, particularly through “crime and punishment” talk. Discursive distinctions are constructed and continuously reinterpreted (iterated) through penal policy pronouncements, practical actions, discussions in the popular culture, and the proclamations, rules, and practices of institutional structures such as the criminal justice system, correctional institutions, and punishment and rehabilitation. These abstract distinctions obscure the numerous ways in which penological discourse and practices permeate the wider society. They also disguise the connections between the theory and practices of penology and the impacts, costs, and consequences that these have for our societal system. Constitutive penologists call for (1) the integration of prison and related penological practices with society, (2) a demystification of the penological society, and (3) the development of more holistic responses to criminal harm.

Constitutive penologists also argue that conventional penology provides the discursive reference for actions that create, develop, and sustain prison. Discursive structures are embodied with ideological material, which provides the backdrop for socially constructed meaning. Whether penology is taken in its broadest sense to mean the systematic study of penal systems, or the more narrowly focused investigation of the effectiveness of sentencing in preventing reoffending, or even the microscopic examination of penal institutions and their routine practices of violence and discrimination, all research sustains the continued existence of the penological society, dubbed the “incarceration nation.” Thus, debates over being in or out of prison, over building more or less penal institutions, about overcrowding and overspending, about alternatives to and challenges, all continuously assume the taken-for-granted existence of the very structures that need to be questioned and explained. In short, they reinforce the prison as a necessary reality.