Judge and Punish : The Penal State on Trial

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. "What remains anti-democratic in our criminal justice systems, and where does it come from? [The author] spent years sitting in on trials, watching as individuals were judged and sentenced for armed robbery, assault, rape, and murder. [The author's] 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, [this book] 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."-- Back cover Cover 1 CONTENTS 8 PART ONE: WHAT WE ARE 12 1 The State on Trial 14 2 Subjects of the Law: A Repressive Theory of Power 24 3 From Law to Critique 30 PART TWO: THE STATE AND VIOLENCE 38 4 Civilization and Its Lies 40 5 See the State for What It Is 46 6 The Double Reality of Violence 54 PART THREE: THE SYSTEM OF JUDGMENT 76 7 Beyond Responsibility 78 8 The Politics of Perceptions 91 9 An Individualizing Narrative 110 10 React Differently 129 PART FOUR: THE SYSTEM OF PUNISHMENT 144 11 Accuse and Punish 146 12 The Logic of Punishment 157 13 What Is a Crime? The Fictional Frameworks of Penality 170 14 Penality, Sovereignty, and Democracy 183 PART FIVE: SEE THE WORLD 202 15 Rethink Sociology 204