”How could this be? How could offenders have been so thoroughly deprived of their citizenship status and the rights that typically accompany it? Perhaps, because we have become convinced that certain offenders, once they offend, are no longer ‘members of the public’ and cease to be deserving of the kinds of consideration we typically afford to each other.” ( Garland, pp.181-182)

Whether it’s detention without trial, imprisonment of the young or the elderly for non-violent immigration and property offences, Capital and Corporal Punishment for non-violent drug offenders, State sanctioned punishment have become increasingly justified by State officials invoking concepts of deterrence, national security and the preservation of social stability.

In some increasingly repressive Asian and Western societies, government ministers wield ultimate power in determining whether minors or children suspected of terroristic designs should be detained without trial;

All this done without clear oversight provided by an independent judiciary in some instances, while Citizens remain unfazed by the possibility that ‘evidence’ against such individuals of having committed any crime would not stand the scrutiny of a court of law;

It’s not, after all, their child, their husband, wife or parent whose faces years behinds bars in prison facilities designed to produce psycho-social misfits through solitary confinement, abusive interrogations and possible torture through the use of corporal punishment in certain instances.

We are repeatedly warned by our utilitarian minded protectors of the existential dangers posed to our families and society by the scourge of drugs and illegal immigrants, the destructive forces waiting to be unleashed if laws sanctioning detention without trial, corporal and capital punishment for drug trafficking were to be repealed;

In such mind-numbing political discourses, background factors such as the age of a minor or an elderly person, mental disabilities and psychiatric disorders of offenders continue to be overlooked, minimized or simply forgotten —

by those convinced of State narratives legitimizing the exercise of power and violence through symbolic but brutal practices affirming values of a culture of control, vestiges of a former colonial era.

One wonders how the unthinkable is even achieved by those wielding unfettered political and legislative power in societies claiming to be enlightened democracies with the acquiescence of its citizens, depriving the liberty of the non-violent and exposing them to the moral and physical dangers inherent in State prison:

maiming and in some instances, killing of human beings done in the name of National security and deterrence of potential and actual offenders.

The cautionary tale woven by justice officials in some societies designed to legitimize deprivation of life, liberty and fundamental human rights of its citizens is one of —

a nation State overrun by drug traffickers and terrorists were it not for the existence of (colonial era) penal laws, legitimizing and enforcing detentions of citizens without trial, whipping, and executions of convicted offenders.

The desire to exercise greater control over the lives of its citizens is evinced by the irresistible urge of lawmakers to legislate increasingly punitive, brutal penal punishment inflicted on those who pose no violence to others:

the illegal immigrant, the drug addict, the ideologically and politically incorrect, the speaker of ‘falsehoods’, the underclass…

all under the guise that such laws are necessary to protect us….

it’s as if the ends justifies the means, even if that means stripping citizens of not just their right to be treated humanely, but also of their right to liberty and some cases, their right to life.

A dystopian picture of a society thrown into chaos begins to emerge in our consciousness over time;

one in which thousands of lives face potential ruin, destruction by the scourge of drugs sold by depraved traffickers; radicalization of individuals influenced by fundamentalist ideologies espoused by terror organizations;

it matters little that those subject to State Criminalization and overcriminalization, incarceration without trial, whippings and executions include mothers, drug addict fathers, husbands, wives, children of citizens of a society whose families continue to be devastated by harsh penal laws.

a small price to be paid (from the perspective of a utilitarian thinker) it might seem, for the preservation of a State’s social and economic stability, and its allure to investors, businesses and wealthy immigrants drawn to a playground for the rich.

Such utilitarian justifications for inflicting horrific harms on even children in the name of State security is metaphorically represented in story of a city of happiness by Ursula K.Le Guin: “The ones Who Walked Away from Omelas”).

As Michael J. Sandel in his book ‘Justice’ recounts:

“In a basement under one of the beautiful buildings of Omelas, or perhaps on the cellar of one its spacious private homes, -there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window.” And in this room sits a child. The child is feeble-minded, malnourished, and neglected. It lives out its day in wretched misery.” ( Sandel in ‘Justice’ p.40);

“They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas…They all know it has to be there.. They all understand that their happiness, they beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children… even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery …

if the child were brought up into the sunlight out of the vile place, if it were cleansed and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing indeed; but if it were done , in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms.” ( Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas”), in Richard Bausch , ed. Norton Anthology of short Fiction, 2000).

The ideological and utilitarian terms of a society’s social compact may not be entirely different from those evinced in Le Guin’s story;

Garland notes: ”by engaging in violence, or drug abuse, or recidivism, they reveal themselves for what they are; ‘the dangerous other’, the underclass.‘ (Garland, p.182).

The individual’s value is therefore said to be derived from his or her contribution to the maintenance of a social order, a social order contingent upon a social consensus that an offender is deserving of a violent response;

but this is a ‘consensus of a pre-modern, mechanical kind- based on a shared set of values not a pluralism of tolerated differences. Those who do not and cannot fit in must be excommunicated and forcibly expelled. ( Garland, p.185).

A consensus of shared values promoting order over respect for individual life and liberty, social stability over a morality recognizing human dignity is conceivably achieved through political discourse crafted to affirm the symbols of a punitive culture of control that the renowned NYU sociologist, David Garland writes about.

A culture of control exemplified by images depicting the existential threat of drugs continue to be seamlessly woven into political narratives of State officials supported by images of drug addicted mothers and their crack babies, justifying the infliction of corporal punishment even on those who might have been addicted to narcotics for most of their life, and for whom medical treatment would have been necessary to overcome their addictions;

Cultural messages that citizens ‘unthinkingly’ and reflexively accept as a small price to pay for their continued security;

While discourses on capital punishment adroitly shift all responsibility for the stability, safety and economic wealth of the nation to the State executioner and his definitive act of fracturing the cervical spine of death row inmates . Hangings are meant to kill efficiently (nbcnews.com)

Public hangings and other forms of State sanctioned executions are no longer carried out in western societies in Europe and even many Asian societies. Instead of being dragged to a scaffold in a public square, the inmate’s final hours are spent within the confines of the prison walls, hidden from the public’s gaze.

As a French philosopher once posited:

”All grandeur, all power, all subordination rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at every moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple, and society disappears. God who has created sovereignty, has also made punishments.” (Joseph de Maistre in Garland, p.77)

To ensure that the death by hanging, or whipping of inmates is even considered a palatable penal option to the masses, State officials draw from an array of plausible sounding justifications for the killing and maiming of a living human being, the most popular of which is general deterrence.

The idea that news of another hanging of an inmate would strike terror into the hearts of those contemplating drug trafficking seems to be an unspoken, extravagant assumption of the deterrent theorist and politician.

Potential traffickers are, therefore, said to be dissuaded from engaging in the illegal trade because of the spectre of death, personified in the hangman, looming over them.

The use of the death penalty, corporal punishment and detention without trial , from this perspective, appears to be the cultural emblems of societies ruled by fear, terror and domination rather than consent of its people.

The words of the eminent Criminologist, David Garland resonate among those of us who stop to wonder if there is anyone who might protect us from the power of the State and its culture of control.

“The imposition of the death penalty is first and foremost an exercise of power, whenever, wherever, and however, it occurs;

any account of its development must focus, therefore, on the fundamental question of power ….

its claims to authority and the rules for its legitimate exercise …its expresssion through symbols and cultural performance.” (David Garland, p. 76)