Resisting Punitiveness in Europe?

Punishment and Welfare

Chapters look into possible lessons to be learned from characteristics and developments in Scandinavian and some Continental European countries.

Punishment and Human Rights

Contributions analyze how human rights in Europe can and do act as a shield against – but sometimes also as a possible motor for – criminalization and penalization.

Punishment and Democracy

The increased political attention to victims’ rights and interests and to public opinion surveys in European democracies is discussed as a possible risk for enhanced levels of punitiveness in penal policies and evaluated against the background of research evidence about the wishes and expectations of victims of crime and the ambivalence and ‘polycentric consistency’ of public opinion formations about crime and punishments.