3 - The Carceral State and the Interpenetration of Interests: Commercial, Governmental and Civil Society Interests In Criminal Justice

Summary

Introduction

There is something rotten in the state of criminal justice. Let us not mince words here: this smell is none other than the pungent aroma of the commercialisation of the penal realm, and it is through our current developments in penal politics (especially the expansion and intensity of mass incarceration, and its counterpart mass supervision) (McNeill, 2018) that this odour has exasperatingly wafted into governmental and civil society interests. Perhaps to us and our fellow criminologists (and certainly to most non-specialists), this miasma of commercialisation is no more than an irksome bother, an annoyance in our atmosphere. It does not impact us intensely, and we may even be persuaded to accept the claim that it is a necessary by-product of the smooth and efficient delivery of criminal justice services. There are doubtless many such odour-neutralising arguments to hand. However, in the lives of many already marginalised people in our society, it is sometimes the case that the interaction of state and commercial interests can produce hazardous, even noxious, effects. The question here is whether the permeation of the everyday lifeworld of very large populations of people through practices of supervision and surveillance is of this kind. Such effects may well be a debilitating smog; an overpowering feeling of exhaustion and strife these individuals endure, a darkened hazy fog which stops them in their tracks, making it difficult for them to breathe and flourish. This rot continues to pollute their lives and the lives of their loved ones, and as our chapter contends, now is the time seriously to reconsider the polluted path of commercial interests in criminal justice and query where it is taking us. We have resolved, in short, to get off the fence.

To be more precise, we need to think harder about whether the market provides – or does not provide – an adequate form of public accountability in this sphere, and about the ways the public are empowered or otherwise to engage in democratic decision making.

We think it is probable that confluent interests from the commercial, governmental and civil society sectors will, in the absence of robust interrogation, continue to extend the scope of penal supervision in the lives and communities of already marginalised people.