The Expanding Prison: The Crisis in Crime and Punishment and the Search for Alternatives by David Cayley (Anansi Press, 1998).
The author writes of expanding prison
growth: “I believe that this continuing
increase presents a real threat to the decency and civility of the countries in
which it is occurring. The ethos of the
prisons spreads beyond the prison’s walls....
Prisons, by definition, are totalitarian institutions. As they take a more prominent part in social
control, they acclimatize the societies that rely on them to this totalitarian
mode of maintaining order.... Prisons
foster the very behaviour they purport to control, and so justify their own
expansion (pp. 6 & 7).” Societies
are in danger of becoming mirror images of the prisons they rely on.
Over against that, “This book argues for [a] new
view of criminal justice and warns of an increasingly uncivil society if such a
view is not adopted.” Then the author
outlines the book’s contents: “It is
organized in three main parts. Part I looks into the reasons why prison numbers
have increased so relentlessly over the last twenty years. Part II examines both the practice and the
theory of incarceration as a punishment for crime, and seeks out the historical
roots of our commitment to this way of doing things. Part III describes a number of successful
alternatives that are in use around the world and outlines the very different
approach to criminal justice on which they are based. A concluding chapter looks at the
possibilities and the pitfalls of extending the use of these alternatives in Canada and
elsewhere (p. 11).”
Cayley delivers and issues a concluding challenge: “The threat of gulags Western-style and the promise of alternatives both have grounds within the emerging order. I am too old to be optimistic, but still young enough to be hopeful (p. 365).”
Further recommended reading would be: A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World by Vivien Stern (Northeastern University Press, 1998).
For centuries Christians have largely endorsed penal responses to crime despite Jesus’ words: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Mt. 9:13); and “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). A millennium ago, Christians originated Western penal law. In this new millennium, Christians are called to repent of that sin, and embrace “justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Mt. 23:23) in response to crime. Will we rise to the task?
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