Disordered Punishment: Workaround Technologies of Criminal Records Disclosure and the Rise of a New Penal Entrepreneurialism

British Journal of Criminology, Forthcoming

19 Pages Posted: 10 Sep 2019

See all articles by Alessandro Corda

Alessandro Corda

Queen's University Belfast - School of Law

Sarah Lageson

Northeastern University - School of Law; Northeastern University - College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Date Written: June 19, 2019

Abstract

The privatization of punishment is a well-established phenomenon in modern criminal justice operations. Less understood are the market and technological forces that have dramatically reshaped the creation and sharing of criminal record data in recent years. Analysing trends in both the United States and Europe, we argue that this massive shift is cause to reconceptualize theories of penal entrepreneurialism to more directly address the role of technology and commercial interests. Criminal records, or proxies for them, are now actively produced and managed by third parties via corporate decision-making processes, rather than government dictating boundaries or outsourcing duties to private actors. This has led to what we term ‘disordered punishment’, imposed unevenly and inconsistently across multiple platforms, increasingly difficult for both government and individuals to control.

Keywords: criminal records, punishment and technology, privatization, digital age, penal entrepreneurialism

JEL Classification: K14, K42

Suggested Citation

Corda, Alessandro and Lageson, Sarah, Disordered Punishment: Workaround Technologies of Criminal Records Disclosure and the Rise of a New Penal Entrepreneurialism (June 19, 2019). British Journal of Criminology, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3446691

Alessandro Corda (Contact Author)

Queen's University Belfast - School of Law ( email )

School of Law
Belfast, BT7 1NN
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/alessandro-corda

Sarah Lageson

Northeastern University - School of Law ( email )

416 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
United States

Northeastern University - College of Social Sciences and Humanities ( email )

360 Huntington Ave,
Boston, MA 02115
United States

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