Abstract
Ferkaluk concludes her work on Tocqueville’s penal reform by noting two important questions that remain and briefly reflecting on the implications that a study of On the Penitentiary System has for the present. First, Ferkaluk notes that the question of evaluating Tocqueville’s penal reform in relation to his work in the Algerian colonization project needs further study. A second important question that emerges from this work is how do the themes of On the Penitentiary System compare to Tocqueville’s larger works, especially Democracy in America, which followed so closely in publication? Finally, Ferkaluk argues that Tocqueville’s moderate penal reform enables readers to navigate the relationship between crime and social mores, address multiple causes of crime, and understand the proper objects of the contemporary penal system in a moderate way.
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- 1.
In other words, the conclusions of the four studies conducted by Avramenko, Boesche, Gingerich, and Wolin need to be understood in light of the idea of human nature presented in On the Penitentiary System.
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For an interesting discussion of how distinctively American attributes (such as love of democracy, Protestant religiosity, procedural fairness, and the ideal of equality) originally described by Tocqueville influence the current incarceration state’s harshness, see Whitman 2007.
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See, for example, Tocqueville 1984a, pp. 207–218, 227–247, 262–266.
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Tocqueville 1984a, p. 237. Remember that for Tocqueville, “mores ” comprises “the whole moral and intellectual state of a people,” including their notions, opinions, and ideas that shape habits (Tocqueville 2000, p. 275). Maletz notes that Tocqueville does not think ancient customs contribute to mores; in that sense, Tocqueville draws more from Montesquieu’s notion of a “spirit” behind the laws than from Cicero’s understanding for his definition (2005, p. 4).
- 5.
Davis v. Ayala, 576 US (2015) (Kennedy A. concurring opinion).
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United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary 2012.
- 7.
References
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———. 1984b. Œuvres Complètes: Écrits sur le système pénitentiaire en France et à l’étranger, Tome IV, Vol. 2, ed. Michelle Perrot. Paris: Gallimard.
———. 2000. Democracy in America, ed. and trans. Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Chicago: University of Chicago.
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Ferkaluk, E.K. (2018). Conclusion: Tocqueville’s Penal Reform and Today’s Penal Problems. In: Tocqueville’s Moderate Penal Reform. Recovering Political Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75577-9_6
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