Proud to Punish: The Global Landscapes of Rough Justice - Paperback

by Gilles Gayer (Author), Laurent Gayer (Author), Cynthia Scoch (Translator)

A magisterial comparative study, Proud to Punish recenters our understanding of modern punishment through a sweeping analysis of the global phenomenon of "rough justice" the use of force to settle accounts and enforce legal and moral norms outside the formal framework of the law. While taking many forms, including vigilantism, lynch mobs, people's courts, and death squads, all seekers of rough justice thrive on the deliberate blurring of lines between law enforcers and troublemakers. Digital networks have provided a profitable arena for vigilantes, who use social media to build a following and publicize their work, as they debase the bodies of the accused for purposes of edification and entertainment. It is this unabashed pride to punish, and the new punitive celebrations that actualize, publicize, and commercialize it, that this book brings into focus. Recounted in lively prose, Proud to Punish is both a global map of rough justice today and an insight into the deeper nature of punishment as a social and political phenomenon.

Author Biography

Gilles Favarel-Garrigues is a CNRS Senior Research Professor at Sciences Po-CERI, Paris. He is the author of Policing Economic Crime in Russia: From Soviet Planned Economy to Privatisation (2010). Laurent Gayer is a CNRS Senior Research Professor at Sciences Po-CERI, Paris. He is the author of Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City (2014).