Criminological literature of the last decade is rife with tales and analyses of ‘increased’ or ‘new’ punitiveness in western countries over the last 20 or 30 years. This article starts from the finding that levels of punitiveness vary greatly between countries and are correlated with welfare investments and political economy, different democratic political structures leading to more or less populist punitiveness and a different emphasis on human rights and human dignity. It builds on a former argument that penal policies are the result of political choices and transforms the empirical findings concerning welfare, democracy and human rights into normative arguments for a reduced punitiveness.
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