Issue 1/2017

Content

Rehabilitation as an instrument of public protection? The programmatic realignment of probation service. (German)

Christina Schlepper & Jan Wehrheim

This article develops the thesis that the work of probation service is reframed due to the implementation of quality management deriving from the economisation of social work. Since the 2000s, an additional set of rules in terms of quality standards of the social services of justice has been established below the legislative level setting protection of the community and victims as main objectives of probation. This programmatic realignment of probation service downgrades rehabilitation from the former welfarist ideal to a means of public protection. We assume that this transformation is caused by the growing pressure on social work to prove its legitimacy and efficiency, and ask how the new framework of rehabilitation affects thinking and acting of probation officers.

Of 'Rockers', 'Punks', 'Crash-Kids' and 'repeat offenders' - Four decades of dangerous youth in the state parliament of Hamburg. (German)

Dirk Lampe

The worries about the condition of ´the youth´ are an anthropological constant in human societies. Man has proven to invent the most creative ways to try to ensure that young people behave in a manner thought suitable. Affected by the fear of what malicious things could happen if young people would decide to ignore the rules, laws, or values set up by the elder generation, societies tend - from time to time - to enter states of a ´moral panic´. Based on the theories of Stanley Cohen (1972) or Stuart Hall et al. (1978) this article examines discourses on youth crime in the state parliament of Hamburg from 1968 to 2011 with a special focus on times of heated debates about juvenile misconduct. The results are subsequently used to discuss general developments in German juvenile law. In doing so the highly contested question if Germany has experienced a punitive turn in juvenile law or not is addressed.

Discussion Paper

The 'crisis' of labour anf the return of repression in criminal law. On the contemporary relevance of 'Punishment and Social Structure' by Rusche/Kirchheimer. (German)

Andreas Stückler

This contribution discusses the actuality of a classic study by Rusche and Kirchheimer on "punishment and social structure". The main thesis of this study is that the development of criminal law and penal system depends on the societal need for workforce. It is shown that this thesis - as far as some theoretical insufficiencies are considered - can provide for a critical understanding of current punitive tendencies in criminal law. These tendencies have to be regarded against the backdrop of an intensifying "crisis of labour" being accompanied by increasing unemployment and precarity that is (albeit to differing degrees) politically managed by increasingly repressive means.

Book reviews:

Max Hermanutz (Hg.): Gewalt gegen Polizisten - sinkender Respekt und steigende Aggression? Eine Beleuchtung der Gesamtumstände (Menzel)

Hans-Dieter Schwind: Kriminologie und Kriminalpolitik: Eine praxisorientierte Einführung mit Beispielen (Legnaro)

Florian Mildenberger (Hg.): Die andere Fakultät. Theorie - Geschichte - Gesellschaft (Peters)

Nicole Rafter: The Crime of all Crimes: Towards a Criminology of Genocide (Neubacher)

Manfred Rolfes: Kriminalität, Sicherheit und Raum. Humangeographische Perspektiven der Sicherheits- und Kriminalitätsforschung (Keitzel).

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