Book Review: Beyond the Death Penalty: Reflections on Punishment

• Author: Megan Denver
• Published date: 01 March 2013
• Date: 01 March 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1057567712470136
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

H. Nelen and J. Claessen (Eds.).

Beyond the Death Penalty: Reflections on Punishment. Cambridge, England: Intersentia Publishing Ltd., 2012. 326 pp.

$98.00 (paperback). ISBN 978-1-78068-060-6

Reviewed by: Megan Denver, University at Albany (SUNY), Albany, NY, USA

DOI: 10.1177/1057567712470136

Beyond the Death Penalty is the product of a 2-day international conference hosted by the Maas-

tricht Centre for Human Rights in 2010. Of the 48 papers presented at the conference, which was

organized around the 150th anniversary of the last public execution in the Netherlands, 19 essays

on various aspects of punishment and justice were included. The chapters are divided into five major

sections: historical and cultural background, punishment in a populist context, reconciliation and

rehabilitation, prison life, and efficiency and effectiveness. As reflected in these varied topical areas,

this book aims to provide different angles and perspectives in its contribution to current debates on

punishment.

The keynote speakers at the conference included David Garland (sociology), Chrisje Brants

(criminology and criminal law), and Hans Boutellier (public administration). Garland follows the

book’s introduction with a discussion on the evolution of the death penalty in Western cultures.

He argues that ‘‘[t]he death penalty is always and everywhere an exercise of state power’’

(p. 15), and is continuously shaped by cultural and political forces. He concludes that humanitarian-

ism and liberalism (which he distinguishes from civilization and democracy) have impacted the

decline in the use of the death penalty. In particular, recent reform efforts have shifted the focus

on the death penalty from the domestic policy arena to an international issue of human rights.

Brants considers a paradox in the Netherlands: compared to other European countries, the Nether-

lands was the first to abolish the death penalty and the last to have public executions. She reviews

various theories to help explain this apparent contradiction, and concludes that the social, political,

and legal–cultural context of the Netherlands left abolition as the only option. Brants finds that the

perception of public executions as legitimate and the link between legal traditions and legal culture

are important for understanding this apparent ‘‘backwardness’’ yet ‘‘progressiveness of total aboli-

tion’’ (p. 43).

The third keynote speaker shifts the conversation from the death penalty in historical context to

punishment in the populist context. Boutellier describes populists groups—such as the Party for

Freedom in the Netherlands and the Tea Party Movement in the United States—as opposing the

establishment, having charismatic leadership, and emphasizing unity and patriotism. He questions

why these groups are particularly tough on crime, and finds that issues of safety and security ‘‘stand

for something that is bigger than the actual crime problem’’ (p. 98). Boutellier recommends that by

viewing society as small, local entities that comprise the social order, criminal justice appears to be a

system of support in a fairly stable society instead of a reaction to chaos.

Beyond the Death Penalty opens with six chapters on the death penalty (including the papers by

Garland and Brants), and covers issues related to reform, abolition and de facto abolition,

International CriminalJustice Review

23(1) 95-107

ª2012 Georgia State University

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