Penal Abolitionism
Definition
A critical criminological position arguing that prisons and, in its fullest form, the criminal justice system itself should be dismantled and replaced with non-punitive responses to harm.
Related terms
- Conflict Criminology
- A family of theories holding that criminal law and its enforcement reflect the interests of powerful social groups rather than universal moral...
- Critical Criminology
- An umbrella term for approaches that examine crime and criminal justice through the lens of structural power, including class, race, gender, and...
- Instrumentalist Marxism
- A strand of radical criminology holding that the state and its law directly serve the immediate interests of the capitalist class that...
- Radical Criminology
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- Structuralist Marxism
- A strand of radical criminology holding that the state maintains some independence from individual capitalists so that law can, at times, restrain...