Loïc Wacquant is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Research Associate at the Centre Européen de Sociologie et de Science Politique, Paris.

"Rethinking the Penal State is a breath of fresh air and sure to become a major reference point in the study of punishment. It demonstrates that punishment is central not only to statecraft, but to producing citizenship. It is must-read for students, scholars, and policymakers interested in why and how democratic societies remain on the cusp of justice rather than realizing it."Vanessa Barker, author of Nordic Nationalism and Penal Order"Wacquant paints on canvas that is as wide as the global history of penal forms and as precise and detailed as the best ethnographies. Easily one of the most important contributions to the theory of punishment and society in the twenty-first century."Jonathan Simon, author of Mass Incarceration on Trial

• A Genealogical SketchOverture: On Punishment, the State and CitizenshipThe criminal as anti-citizenThe many faces and functions of penalityA historicist-analytical approach1. Penality as Core State Capacity and Negative SociodicyPunishment and social structure revisitedPunishment and the state: the puzzle of mutual ignoranceDurkheim, Rusche and Foucault on penality: passion, labor, disciplinesReformation versus retribution: meshing philosophies of punishmentWeber, Mann and Scott on the state: force, penetration, legibilityThe three states of Pierre BourdieuBourdieu 1, penality in the bureaucratic fieldBourdieu 2, Right hand and Left handBourdieu 3, symbolic capital and negative sociodicyThree structural properties of the penal state2. Marginality, Ethnicity, TerritoryThe stunning return of the prisonPenalization as neoliberal statecraftLessons from social history: marginality floods the cityProvince of the precariat: class and ethnicity behind barsManaging marginality by targeting territoryStructural osmosis'Paper penality' versus 'street penality'Historical excursus: colonial penality and the urban badlandsThe penal triad in the tropicsBringing unruly bodies to heel, or indigénat at workSpecial punishment in neighborhoods of relegation3. Penal Power Incarnate: A Day in the Life of a ProsecutorA structural ethnography of prosecutorial practiceSituating the pretrial prosecutor'The Professor' comes to courtAnatomy of the local judicial fieldA day in the life'Down in the trenches'The splintering of punishment across class fractionsA cautionary note on race and prosecutionJudicial tagging and relational contractingThe human spear of the stateCoda: The Parable of Marx's Hangman and the Aporias of AbolitionismUrban marginality, penal policy and social rightsAbolitionism as penal millenarismThe ten tenets of radical penal minimalismPenal transformation and the 'ethic of responsibility'

Loïc Wacquant is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Research Associate at the Centre Européen de Sociologie et de Science Politique, Paris.

"Rethinking the Penal State is a breath of fresh air and sure to become a major reference point in the study of punishment. It demonstrates that punishment is central not only to statecraft, but to producing citizenship. It is must-read for students, scholars, and policymakers interested in why and how democratic societies remain on the cusp of justice rather than realizing it."Vanessa Barker, author of Nordic Nationalism and Penal Order"Wacquant paints on canvas that is as wide as the global history of penal forms and as precise and detailed as the best ethnographies. Easily one of the most important contributions to the theory of punishment and society in the twenty-first century."Jonathan Simon, author of Mass Incarceration on Trial

• A Genealogical SketchOverture: On Punishment, the State and CitizenshipThe criminal as anti-citizenThe many faces and functions of penalityA historicist-analytical approach1. Penality as Core State Capacity and Negative SociodicyPunishment and social structure revisitedPunishment and the state: the puzzle of mutual ignoranceDurkheim, Rusche and Foucault on penality: passion, labor, disciplinesReformation versus retribution: meshing philosophies of punishmentWeber, Mann and Scott on the state: force, penetration, legibilityThe three states of Pierre BourdieuBourdieu 1, penality in the bureaucratic fieldBourdieu 2, Right hand and Left handBourdieu 3, symbolic capital and negative sociodicyThree structural properties of the penal state2. Marginality, Ethnicity, TerritoryThe stunning return of the prisonPenalization as neoliberal statecraftLessons from social history: marginality floods the cityProvince of the precariat: class and ethnicity behind barsManaging marginality by targeting territoryStructural osmosis'Paper penality' versus 'street penality'Historical excursus: colonial penality and the urban badlandsThe penal triad in the tropicsBringing unruly bodies to heel, or indigénat at workSpecial punishment in neighborhoods of relegation3. Penal Power Incarnate: A Day in the Life of a ProsecutorA structural ethnography of prosecutorial practiceSituating the pretrial prosecutor'The Professor' comes to courtAnatomy of the local judicial fieldA day in the life'Down in the trenches'The splintering of punishment across class fractionsA cautionary note on race and prosecutionJudicial tagging and relational contractingThe human spear of the stateCoda: The Parable of Marx's Hangman and the Aporias of AbolitionismUrban marginality, penal policy and social rightsAbolitionism as penal millenarismThe ten tenets of radical penal minimalismPenal transformation and the 'ethic of responsibility'