Welfare and Punishment in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Abstract The past two decades of work on the social analysis of punishment have arguably neglected the impact of the commitment to welfare on the scale of imprisonment. This chapter explores several possible reasons for its marginalization and argues the case for its reinstatement as a topic of central importance. The achievement of penal welfarism in relative decarceration gains support from the work of Beckett and Western (2001) and from cross-national data on prison numbers and welfare spending. Time series analysis suggests an increasing trade-off between welfare and penal capital, and that the commitment to welfare constitutes a growing constraint on the shift to a more punitive culture of control.