The Panoptic-Carceral State through the Prism of the Indicators of Prison Policy of the XXI Century

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of quantitative indicators of the national prison policies in different states of the world for the period 2000 – 2021. The article focuses on the issue of prison population growth at the global and regional levels. This article is a continuation of the author’s research on the implementation of the concept of a panoptic-carceral state in modern societies od the XXI century. That is why the study of the policy of social control in the XXI century urgently requires the use of statistical data for empirical testing of hypotheses regarding the greater incarceration of society in the XXI century. Fundamental for the purposes of this study is the author’s thesis of the further incarceration of society both at the global and national levels and the failure of the classical goals of criminal punishment, which are considered traditional within the framework of the formal approach to punishment and the goals of punishment. The above is manifested in the continued growth of the number of prisoners in the world, despite external criticism of extremely convenient imprisonment as a form of social control. The author’s thesis is related to the further legitimization of the failure of the prison in the prison policy of modern states and the transformation of probation services, parole services and other non-institutional ‘attachments’ into de-facto camouflaged branches of the prison. In addition, quantitative and qualitative statistical indicators of placement of deviants under the supervision of national probation services, parole services or similar public and private structures should be taken into account. Based on the results of the research, it is concluded that the number of prisoners in the global context has increased over the past 20 years. Countries in Africa continue to show an increase in the number of prisoners, although the African picture is very controversial given that a large number of African countries, on the contrary, maintain a trend of decreasing the total number of prisoners. As for the countries of America, it is precisely the countries of South America that provide such growth in view of the parallel rather significant decrease in the number of prisoners in the United States of America in recent years. As for Asian countries, in general, the situation is more or less stable in most countries, although a small increase in the number of prisoners can be also noted. As for the countries of Oceania, as can be seen, there has been no reduction in the total prison population at all. And finally, only European countries, thanks to the long-term implementation of policies aimed at reducing the number of prisoners, show significant progress in decarceration, replacing traditional mechanisms of social control with other, more flexible forms.