ABSTRACT
In attempting to provide a framework for understanding punishments that do not involve prison, in their own right, there is a danger of imposing a false coherence and rationale on a set of experiences and events which have neither. But not to do so simply perpetuates the lack of interest and analysis which currently characterize the field. It is not without significance that Cohen's Visions of Social Control (1985), which warns of a dispersal of discipline from inside the prison out into the community, remains a more seductive text than Bottoms' more staid analysis of ‘Neglected features of contemporary penal systems’ (1983). The latter suggests that at least some of our most widely used punishments have very little to do with the creation of docile, compliant bodies and much more to do with penalising rule infringement, much as one might in a game of ice hockey (Bottoms 1983: 176). It will not do, he argues, to make sweeping generalizations about non-incarcerative sanctions, whether they be of the ‘soft option’ or the ‘punitive city’ variety. But neither will it do, in reacting against such generalization, to succumb to a nihilistic parody of postmodern analysis which claims that there are no identifiable themes, no patterns or consistencies — only gaps, illogicalities and fragmentations.
