Penal trends and countertrends in contemporary Turkey: A palimpsestic analysis

Abstract

This article has two key goals. First, it demonstrates the emergence of punitive and managerial penal trends in Turkey on the one hand, and seemingly contradictory countertrends of overcrowding and criminalization (and imprisonment) of political opposition on the other hand. Second, it approaches this case of penal change by relying on the archaeological concept of palimpsest as a heuristic tool. A palimpsest is an ancient parchment that is continuously reused for writing by cutting, scraping, and erasing. As some remnants of the old text inevitably remain visible, the old and new texts are intertwined. I argue in this article that contemporary countertrends of overcrowding and criminalization (and imprisonment) of political opposition are past penal trends that are adapted to contemporary punitive and managerial penal policies through a palimpsestic process. I especially focus on how political prisoners are now identified as high-risk individuals—in harmony with contemporary punitive and managerial practices. The article relies primarily on secondary resources to make its case.