Doctoral Dissertation Research: Penal Transfer and Transformation

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This project investigates the extent to which culture, working in dynamic tension with other processes, shapes and is in turn shaped by penal systems. In particular, it examines how British penal regimes were transformed as they were transferred to the colonial Gold Coast both as the colonial government adopted and altered those systems to meet its own unique needs and as native rulers transformed the British penal system to align it with indigenous beliefs and practices that predated colonial rule. It is hypothesized that these colonial transformations were subsequently transferred back to Europe and further influenced penal developments there. The question raised by these transfers is whether the form the penal systems took was determined by the culture of the colonizing power, by the indigenous peoples it encountered in its implementation, or by other factors such as changes that were being wrought in the colonial economy. Data analysis methods include discourse, statistical, and legal analysis along with archival ethnography to determine which ideas and penal structures were circulating throughout the British Empire and how they were transformed by the ideas and structures already in place in the Gold Coast. This interdisciplinary study will contribute to the sociology of punishment, which often seeks to explain penal systems by pointing to the effects of social structure, material or power relations, viewed in isolation from the underlying culture. Rather than focusing on a single factor in isolation, this project will examine the role of culture in relation to other processes in shaping penal systems. The research will also broaden the field of the sociology of punishment, which has been primarily focused on Europe and the United States, by studying an underrepresented region and country while also focusing on processes of institutional transfer that have shaped the histories of penal systems throughout the world.