From one recession to another: the lessons of a long-term political economy of punishment. The example of Belgium (1830-2012)

The work discussed in this conference finds its long-ago origin in the hypothesis formulated by Rusche and Kirchheimer in the 1930s which laid the basis for a economic theory on criminal punishment. Although their writings are now well-known, one less visible facet of their ideas is worth highlighting for it shows that their theory already heralded work emerging from recent analyses in terms of the political economy of punishment.
The key notion of their work can be summarised as follows: “Every system of production tends to discover punishments which correspond productive relations.” In their historical context of a Fordist industrial economy in full deployment, the determining category for understanding this relation was the labour market. As the heart of their reasoning the authors called on the principle of “less eligibility” according to which all reform to the system of punishments thus found its upper limit in the condition reserved for the “lowest proletarian classes” originally developed by the 19th century social philosophers. Under a Marxist interpretation, however, in an innovative manner they articulated this notion with the labour market category. This principle referred to the completely classical postulate that the basic function of punishment was dissuasion. This principle referred to the completely classical postulate that the basic function of punishment was dissuasion. All reform to the system of punishments thus found its upper limit in the condition reserved for the “lowest proletarian classes”
In the context of the 1930s, however, Rusche was not seeking to underpin the principle of less eligibility, but to find an alternative to it. Although the shortage or surplus of manpower was placed at the heart of the discussion, the weight of political interventions was equally stressed: the punishment regime would then have different roles depending on whether or not a social policy was applied. The title of Rusche’s article is thus thoroughly evocative. “Prison Revolts or Social Policy” clearly poses the question in terms of an alternative.
Several empirical studies inspired by Rusche, developed in the 1970s and 1980s, conducted statistical verifications on the relation between economic changes and penal repression that were almost exclusively based on unemployment indicators, with hypotheses that were later criticised for their overly mechanistic and instrumental nature. An attentive reading of Rusche shows that it nonetheless contained an embryo of contemporary ideas being put forward in recent analyses of the political economy of punishment. In addition to economic variables and their interrelation, they stress the importance of political, institutional and social variables.
This presentation is divided into three phases.
I shall first present a long-term analysis of Belgian data, with particular focus on a study of the past three to four decades. The interpretive schema for this analysis spanning almost two centuries illustrates two key components and two closely related explanatory links.
I shall then distinguish the two types of theses found in political economy of punishment in relation with those observed in the field of economy (globalization thesis vs. varieties of capitalism). At this point, through an analysis from a temporal perspective, we will be able to situate Belgium’s specific position in relation with broader studies adopting more cross-cutting comparisons.
Lastly the wide angle adopted for our temporal perspective allows us to place in perspective two crucial moments of economic history - the two financial crises followed by the severe recessions of 1930 and 2008 and to discuss prospects for the future in terms of punishment, obviously with a much shorter hindsight for the second crisis.