Monstrosity, correctional healing, and the limits of penal abolitionism

Abstract

Despite gaining significant cultural and academic currency, penal abolitionism remains unable to radically problematize the punishment of individuals found responsible of exceptionally disturbing acts of criminalized violence. Through an empirical examination of a recent Canadian controversy over penal governance articulated to the transfer of a “monster” to a correctional healing lodge, the article makes legible our difficulties in communicating about appropriate responses to exceptional criminalized incidents which would forgo the use of afflictive sanctions as retaliatory harms. Engaging penal abolitionism empirically, theoretically and normatively, the article notably suggests that the limits of penal abolitionism can be explicated by the fact that its critique is premised on an instrumentalist conception of penalty which neglects the communicational function of punishment.