America is the most punitive nation in the world, incarcerating more
than 2.3 million people--or one in 136 of its residents. Against the
backdrop of this unprecedented mass imprisonment, punishment permeates
everyday life, carrying with it complex cultural meanings. In The
Culture of Punishment, Michelle Brown goes beyond prison gates and into
the routine and popular engagements of everyday life, showing that those
of us most distanced from the practice of punishment tend to be
particularly harsh in our judgments.
The Culture of Punishment takes readers on a tour of the sites where
culture and punishment meet--television shows, movies, prison tourism,
and post 9/11 new war prisons--demonstrating that because incarceration
affects people along distinct race and class lines, it is only a
privileged group of citizens who are removed from the experience of
incarceration. These penal spectators, who often sanction the infliction
of pain from a distance, risk overlooking the reasons for democratic
oversight of the project of punishment and, more broadly, justifications
for the prohibition of pain.