ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes Bauman's main arguments by explaining how bureaucratic rationality and social distantiation enable collective human mistreatment. It considers 11 cases that exemplify the mechanisms by which these twin forces operate in the context of American mass incarceration. While Bauman's twin forces continue to work in and on American society, they have also been challenged recently by several counter-discourses and counter-movements, the aims of which function to mollify the two forces that enable 'Othering'. The chapter examines the rehumanizing effects of increasing proximity with the Other, and identifies four socio-penal counter-movements, discourses and practices that achieve these effects. The first of these is a reconfigured offender ideal type, constructed primarily by conservative Christian reformers and advocates for prisoner re-entry programmes. The remaining three developments include restorative, community and participatory justice models, all of which in different ways rehumanize offenders by debureaucratizing justice processes, treating offenders as members of a shared moral community.
