The Political Economy of

Punishment
JAVED IQBAL KHOKHAR
PHD-SCHOLAR (SOCIOLOGY), LLB
D E P U T Y D I R E C T I N G S TA F F AT N AT I O N A L A C A D E M Y F O R P R I S O N S A D M I N I S T R AT I O N ( N A PA ) , M I N I S T R Y O F I N T E R I O R , G O V T. O F PA K I S TA N
 Who is Proponent?
 Karl Marx is proponent of this theory.

 Marx was a:
o German Philosopher
o Dialectician/Social Conflict

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Karl Marx
 Born in Trier, Prussia, on May 5, 1818

 Belongs to middle-class family

 Married to Jenny in 1843

 Died on March 14, 1883

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Karl Marx
 Doctoral degree from the University of Berlin in 1841

 Under supervision of Bruno Bauyer—young Hegelian

 Thesis Title “The Difference between the Democritean

and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature”

o Democritus and Epicurus were ancient Greek philosophers

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Neo-Marxist Writers
 George Rusche and Atto Kirchheimer
 Punishment and Social Structure (1975)

 Evgeny Pashukanis
 General Theory of Law and Marxism (1924)

 Douglas Hay

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 The Political Economy of Punishment
 Punishment as an economically conditioned
state apparatus

 Plays an ideological and political role in ruling

class domination.

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Rusche and Kirchheimer
 Interconnections between penal
institutions and the economic
requirements o f modes of production

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Rusche and Kirchheimer
 Penal institutions imbue prisoners with the
disciplines and attitudes necessary for
adaptation to the workplace
 Prison inmates are put to work as a kind of compulsory
training for industry.

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Rusche and Kirchheimer
 Labor of convicted offenders provides a potentially
exploitable re- source.

 Fine is the other fiscal consideration of twentieth

century most frequently deployed as penal
measure.

"the epitome of rationalized capitalist penal law"

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Pashukanis
 Role of punishment in political and
ideological class struggles

 Maintenance of state-power or ruling-

class hegemony
Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Pashukanis
 In capitalist societies, penal institutions
o are organized around a series of bourgeois values
o follow the logic of capitalist economic relations
o ignore appropriate logic of "scientific penology" (by
which he means a social defense and treatment
model).
Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Standard Bourgeois Individual
1) Free will

2) Responsibility

3) Hedonistic psychology

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Douglas Hay
 Dual role of criminal law as
ideological legitimation as well
as class coercion
Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore
 Douglas Hay
 Ruling class hegemony
1) Strategic use of discretion in criminal justice
2) Careful management of symbols and ceremony
3) Ideological appeal of a system that generally abides
by its own legal ideals

Javed Iqbal Khokhar, PhD-Scholar (Sociology), LLB, Deputy Directing Staff at NAPA Lahore