Political criminals, terrorists and extra-criminal regimes of punishment

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Abstract

In the course of a discussion of the ‘political criminal’ in his lecture course at the Collège de France for 1974–5, Abnormal, Michel Foucault writes that: ‘the criminal is someone who breaks the pact to which he has subscribed and prefers his own interest to the laws governing the society to which he belongs. He thereby reverts to the state of nature since he has broken the original contract. The man from the forest reappears in the criminal’.1 The French philosopher here attests to a recurrent theme in modern, indeed in much contemporary, politico-legal discourse – namely, the figure of a criminality so heinous that it necessitates the suspension of the ordinary operation of the criminal law and, in its place, calls forth regimes of extra-criminal punishment. Such regimes typically feature increased penalties and a diminution or withdrawal of the traditional rights-based safeguards of the criminal trial process, and are normatively justified by recourse to this figure of the political criminal (whose most pressing contemporary manifestation is perhaps the terrorist) as one who has voluntarily broken the hypothetical and foundational ‘social contract’.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAllegiance and Identity in a Globalised World
EditorsFiona Jenkins, Mark Nolan, Kim Rubenstein
Place of PublicationU.K.
PublisherCambridge University Press
Chapter12
Pages267-290
Number of pages24
ISBN (Electronic)9781139696654
ISBN (Print)9781107074330
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes

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