1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910822889303321

Autore

Lagasnerie Geoffroy de

Titolo

Judge and Punish : The Penal State on Trial / / Geoffroy de Lagasnerie

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Stanford, CA : , : Stanford University Press, , [2020]

©2018

ISBN

1-5036-0579-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (1 volume (unpaged))

Disciplina

340/.115

Soggetti

Sociological jurisprudence

Law - Philosophy

Criminal justice, Administration of - Philosophy

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- 1 The State on Trial -- 2 Subjects of the Law: A Repressive Theory of Power -- 3 From Law to Critique -- 4 Civilization and Its Lies -- 5 See the State for What It Is -- 6 The Double Reality of Violence -- 7 Beyond Responsibility -- 8 The Politics of Perceptions -- 9 An Individualizing Narrative -- 10 React Differently -- 11 Accuse and Punish -- 12 The Logic of Punishment -- 13 What Is a Crime? The Fictional Frameworks of Penality -- 14 Penality, Sovereignty, and Democracy -- 15 Rethink Sociology

Sommario/riassunto

What remains anti-democratic in our criminal justice systems, and where does it come from? Geoffroy de Lagasnerie spent years sitting in on trials, watching as individuals were judged and sentenced for armed robbery, assault, rape, and murder. His experience led to this original reflection on the penal state, power, and violence that identifies a paradox in the way justice is exercised in liberal democracies. In order to pronounce a judgment, a trial must construct an individualizing story of actors and their acts; but in order to punish, each act between individuals must be transformed into an aggression against society as a whole, against the state itself. The law is often presented as the reign of reason over passion. Instead, it leads to trauma, dispossession, and violence. Only by overturning our inherited legal fictions can we envision forms of truer justice. Combining narratives of real trials with



theoretical analysis, Judge and Punish shows that juridical institutions are not merely a response to crime. The state claims to guarantee our security, yet from our birth, we also belong to it. The criminal trial, a magnifying mirror, reveals our true condition as political subjects.