The politics of penal excess and the echo of colonial penality

Abstract

Recent trends towards more severe forms of punishment in western nations have been interpreted as undermining the central tenets of penal modernity: rationality, scientism and restraint. Analyses of the turn to penal severity have emphasized a variety of factors, each said to underpin this departure from modern penal doctrines. In this article I take up the issue of penal excess, arguing instead that it is a foundational and central element of penal modernity. Drawing upon historical material from a distinctly modern formation - the 19th-century colonial state - I illustrate how the idea and practices of penal excess were central to the constitution of the state in British India and to the governance of its population. The current turn towards more excessive punishment practices may thus be interpreted within a framework of recursions within penal modernity, rather than as signalling an end or fundamental transformation of the modern state.