Judge and Punish - 9781503605787

Judge and PunishThe Penal State on Trial\nAuthor(s): Geoffroy de Lagasnerie\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Stanford University Press, United States\nImprint: Stanford University Press\nISBN-13: 9781503605787, 978-1503605787\nSynopsis\nWhat remains anti-democratic in our criminal justice systems, and where does it come from? Geoffroy de Lagasnerie spent years sitting in on trials, watching as individuals were judged and sentenced for armed robbery, assault, rape, and murder. His experience led to this original reflection on the penal state, power, and violence that identifies a paradox in the way justice is exercised in liberal democracies. In order to pronounce a judgment, a trial must construct an individualizing story of actors and their acts; but in order to punish, each act between individuals must be transformed into an aggression against society as a whole, against the state itself.\n\n The law is often presented as the reign of reason over passion. Instead, it leads to trauma,.