10: Anarchism and the Abolition of the Criminal Justice System: The Struggle for the Discourse on Evolution and Social Order in Spain

Publication Date:
19 Mar 2025
Pages:
189–206
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529234800.ch010
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This chapter investigates the deep theoretical and political justification behind the anarchist critiques of the criminal justice system and how they were shaped by Spanish libertarian thought in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. What is interesting for those engaging with the ideas and traditions of penal abolitionism, critical criminology or legal sociology is that aspects of anarchist abolitionist discourses were given in response to (or in continuous dialogue with) the strong discourses of positivist criminology and penology which constructed the anarchist as the enemy of evolution and progress. The chapter charts a journey through the philosophical-theoretical bases of criminological discourses and their configurations of the ‘anarchist problem’. It delves into prophylactic narratives to combat anarchism, while examining how these criminological discourses influenced the actual practices of the criminal justice system. Turning to the counterproposals, the chapter draws on libertarian media accounts to explore how criminal anthropology was received, discussed and contested, and how a distinct diagnosis of and solution to crime was proposed. It concludes by reflecting on how anarchist ideas and their encounter with criminological positivism informed the Spanish abolitionist tradition and its implications for abolitionist ideas and praxis in the present day.

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