Penal subjectivities: Developing a theoretical framework for penal consciousness
Penal subjectivities: Developing a theoretical framework for penal consciousness
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刑罚主体性：发展刑罚意识的理论框架
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发表时间：
2015
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通讯作者：
Lori Sexton
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作者：
Lori Sexton
本文发展了一个新的理论框架，即刑罚意识，它考察了囚犯对其惩罚的取向和意义的方式。刑罚意识通过同时赋予个体囚犯的主观意识特权，并将这种意识定位于更大的监禁系统的结构中，来识别产生刑罚的过程。在这样做的过程中，刑罚意识框架超越了将惩罚视为法律制裁的有限的、客观的观点，而是更宽泛地看待惩罚，赋予主观性和意义以特权。从对80名囚犯的定性访谈的归纳分析中，惩罚的两个维度成为理解惩罚的关键：突显和严重。研究发现，惩罚的严重程度取决于惩罚体验的抽象程度，而惩罚的突显程度取决于个体的惩罚期望和惩罚体验之间的“惩罚差距”。通过将惩罚视为客观和主观之间的联系，刑罚意识框架使囚犯理解的惩罚与立法者设想的惩罚明显不同，但同时又取决于它。这使得惩罚可以在现场进行审查，而不是以其理想的、明确的或抽象的形式--这是对惩罚的传统理解的一个重要进步。
This article develops a new theoretical framework, penal consciousness, that examines the ways in which prisoners orient to and make meaning of their punishment. Penal consciousness identifies the processes from which penality emerges by simultaneously privileging the subjective consciousness of individual prisoners and locating this consciousness within the structure of the larger carceral system. In doing so, the penal consciousness framework moves beyond the limited, objective view of punishment as legal sanction to a more expansive view of penality that privileges subjectivity and meaning. From the inductive analysis of 80 qualitative interviews with prisoners, two dimensions of punishment emerged as key to understanding penality: salience and severity. Findings reveal that severity of punishment is predicated on the level of abstraction at which punishment is experienced, while salience of punishment is determined by the “punishment gap” between an individual’s expectations and experiences of punishment. By examining punishment as the nexus between the objective and the subjective, the penal consciousness framework enables punishment as it is understood by prisoners to differ markedly from what is conceived of as punishment by lawmakers, but at the same time to be contingent upon it. This allows punishment to be examined in situ rather than in its ideal, articulated, or abstract form—an important advancement from conventional understandings of punishment.