The Rule of Law, Representational Struggles, and the Will to Punish
Files
Description
It is a genuine pleasure to comment on Professor Didier Fassin's Tanner Lectures, not least because he addresses questions of punishment with an intellectual and moral seriousness that is quite rare. I especially like the fact that he seeks to ground his normative analysis within an empirical understanding of penal practice—an approach that is, for me, a fundamental requirement of serious, critical work. If, in what follows, I offer criticism of Fassin's claims and conclusions, these disagreements should be understood not as fundamental objections but as so many attempts to refine a contribution that I consider important and original. I will direct my comments to the critique of punishment that Fassin has been developing over the course of his two lectures. That critical analysis is, I would say, directed less to “the will to punish” of his title than to the unlawful or illegitimate uses of violence, repression, and penal power on the part of state officials, whether police, prison staff, or judges. (Had he been undertaking his research here in the U.S., he would undoubtedly have included prosecutors, above all, federal prosecutors, in his critique, since they too wield power in an excessive and largely unrestrained manner.)
Source Publication
Didier Fassin, The Will to Punish
Source Editors/Authors
Christopher Kutz
Publication Date
2018
Recommended Citation
Garland, David W., "The Rule of Law, Representational Struggles, and the Will to Punish" (2018). Faculty Chapters. 648.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/648
