Justice without crime and punishment? Security, harm and compensation in a neoliberal world

Abstract

Could the use of monetary compensation in criminal law be extended in order to minimise the use of imprisonment and, by implication, to downsize the domain of criminal justice? The argument of this chapter is that, by extending the use of monetary compensation, the focus of justice would come to be restorative rather than punitive or therapeutic. The bulk of the chapter considers apparatuses and practices, such as insurance and state taxation, through which such a monetary compensation regime could be rendered practicable, and examines ways in which some of the principal objections to it may be answered. The author’s twofold conclusion is that in such a system the prison would be resorted to only as a form of risk-containment where offenders are genuinely dangerous; and that much of criminology would be transformed into a critical study of harm and its prevention.