Fines and the Freedom of Consumption

Abstract

[Abstract] The persistence of the prison system is the subject of much academic scrutiny. I argue here that it can be attributed to the fact that imprisonment performs the same functions as it did in the twentieth century. Just as then, freedom is still considered a universally and intensely valued resource of which all offenders, rich and poor, can be deprived. But while the very essence of freedom and liberty has barely changed, the meaning of money has dramatically shifted. I will address these changes in the next section. Following Simmel’s intuitions, I sketch two perspectival moments around the nature of money in relation to punishment: the archaic approach of directly quantifying human value through money and the transition to a conception of infinite human worth resistant to such calculations. In the third section, I characterize the fine as a punishment that not only deprives the offender of money, but also of freedom—the freedom of consumption. I will here explain the close association between individual freedom and consumption. In the fourth section, the fine as a means to regulate behavior, as a mechanic of training in discipline, will be thoroughly explored and discussed. In the concluding section of this paper, I will call into question the essentially negative evaluation which socio-legal scholarship has traditionally placed on the fine to reframe it as a more acceptable sanction for serious offenses.