| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The British Journal of Criminology 38:1-39 (1998)
© 1998 Centre for Crime & Justice Studies (formerly ISTD)
RESEARCH-ARTICLE |
TOWARDS SAFER SOCIETIES
Punishment, Masculinities and Violence Against Women
Department of Sociology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario Thanks to Elizabeth Comack, Carole LaPrairie, Gail Kellough and Stan Cohen for commenu on earlier drafts, and to John Braithwaite and Peter Grabosky for providing a supportive dimate at ANU, where this paper was born.
This paper seeks to look beyond criminalization models to examine what is known about building less violent societies, at the macro, middle and micro levels. It argues that criminalization is a flawed strategy for dealing with male violence againist women caused by a failure to theorize social control adequately, a failure that has led feminists and other progressive social movements to mis-identify penality as synonymous wrth social control. The first part examines the realities of agendas of criminalization and increased punitiveness through incarceration rates. The second part seeks to explain the dependence on criminal law and institutions of criminal justice by feminists and new social movements. Focusing on wife assault and battery, it points out that strategies of criminalization have benefited privileged white women at the expense of women of colour, aboriginal and immigrant women, and points out problems with the failure to engender concepts of social control. The third part looks at what we know about policies, strategies and identities with the potential to transcend criminalization and facilitate social transformation, paying special attention to the construction, roots and maintenance of hegemonic masculinity. Overall it is argued that effective social control of aberrant behaviour must be sought outside criminal justice institutions, and that the feminist and progressive focus should shift towards examining how to create less violent people (particularly men), families, communities and societies.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  S. Murray and A. Powell "What's the Problem?": Australian Public Policy Constructions of Domestic and Family Violence Violence Against Women, May 1, 2009; 15(5): 532 - 552. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 E. Erez, M. Adelman, and C. Gregory Intersections of Immigration and Domestic Violence: Voices of Battered Immigrant Women Feminist Criminology, January 1, 2009; 4(1): 32 - 56. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
A. L. Girard Backlash or Equality?: The Influence of Men's and Women's Rights Discourses on Domestic Violence Legislation in Ontario Violence Against Women, January 1, 2009; 15(1): 5 - 23. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
R. M. Mann Men's Rights and Feminist Advocacy in Canadian Domestic Violence Policy Arenas: Contexts, Dynamics, and Outcomes of Antifeminist Backlash Feminist Criminology, January 1, 2008; 3(1): 44 - 75. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 K. Daly and J. Stubbs Feminist engagement with restorative justice Theoretical Criminology, February 1, 2006; 10(1): 9 - 28. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
H. Nancarrow In search of justice for domestic and family violence: Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian women's perspectives Theoretical Criminology, February 1, 2006; 10(1): 87 - 106. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 M. Ajzenstadt and O. Steinberg Never Mind the Law: Legal Discourse and Rape Reform in Israel Affilia, August 1, 2001; 16(3): 337 - 359. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
L. SNIDER The Sociology of Corporate Crime: An Obituary: (Or: Whose Knowledge Claims have Legs?) Theoretical Criminology, May 1, 2000; 4(2): 169 - 206. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|