Bringing together leading international researchers, this book reframes the political economy of punishment, analysing penality within the current economic situation and connecting contemporary penal changes with political and cultural processes.

Over the last fifteen years, the analytical field of punishment and society has witnessed an increase of research developing the connection between economic processes and the evolution of penality from different standpoints, focusing particularly on the increase of rates of incarceration in relation to the transformations of neoliberal capitalism. Bringing together leading researchers from diverse geographical contexts, this book reframes the theoretical field of the political economy of punishment, analysing penality within the current economic situation and connecting contemporary penal changes with political and cultural processes. It challenges the traditional and common sense understanding of imprisonment as 'exclusion' and posits a more promising concept of imprisonment as a 'differential' or 'subordinate' form of 'inclusion'. This groundbreaking book will be a key text for scholars who are working in the field of punishment and society as well as reaching a broader audience within law, sociology, economics, criminology and criminal justice studies.

"Amid the recent resurgence of interest in the political economy of punishment, this timely and valuable collection brings fresh insights as well as building on established paradigms. The book, which features some of the leading figures in the field, ranges widely across countries and explores a variety of approaches, yet holds nicely together within a coherent shared project. It should reach a wide and attentive audience."? - Nicola Lacey, School Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy, London School of Economics, UK