Is the Empire coming home?

This paper was written and published in 2014.

Abstract

The rapid expansion in the use of incarceration and the criminal justice

system’s penetration of new areas of private and public life have been

linked to the emergence of neoliberalism. This expansion of punitiveness

has been portrayed as a reactionary departure from a previously civilising

and progressive social history (Pratt, 2002). Rejecting this view this paper

reconceptualises the British state to include the colonial as well as the

metropole. The first section highlights how the incorporation of colonial

experiences into the history of punishment shows the British state has a

long history of penal excess. In the second section the links between this

colonial history and the ‘new punitiveness’ are investigated and

similarities identified. The final section argues that nineteenth century

liberalism used exclusionary exceptions to reconcile liberty at home with

domination and racism in the colony. The section then explores the

resemblances between this classical liberalism and contemporary

neoliberalism to show how these play a legitimising role in punitive and

exclusionary policies. The paper concludes that the punitiveness currently

being deployed at the metropolitan centre should be seen not as a new

development but as a continuation of punitive strategies that were tested

and developed in the colonized periphery whose subjugated populations’

direct descendants are now among its main targets.