The relations between sentencing and post-sentencing stages (e.g., the implementation of prison, parole or community-based sanctions) are often perceived through temporal, spatial and normative binaries. The static time of retributive calibration—as fully known at sentencing time—stands at the heart of this separation. Through qualitative findings drawn from parole-board chairpersons in Israel, the paper argues that retributive punishment may evolve with time. As the findings suggest, parole decision-makers often go beyond risk and rehabilitation and reframe, reinterpret and renegotiate the dimensions of the deserved punishment. Three temporally dynamic themes of retributive discourses were described: (1) unexpected suffering review; (2) moral character revaluation; and (3) diminished censure reassessment. The findings challenge both the static conceptualization of retributive time and the instrumental view of parole decision-making. More generally, the findings question the assumed strict boundaries between sentencing and post-sentencing stages and call for future scholarly engagement with the evolution of punishment over time.
Parole boards have traditionally assessed prisoners’ future risk and rehabilitation prospects in deciding on early release from prison. However, parole boards may do more. In some systems, they may deny parole applications for punitive reasons, thus acting as a resentencing authority. This study conducted a qualitative analysis of the punitive discourses of parole decision-making, with Israel as a comparative case study. Through interviews with 20 chairpersons of Israeli Parole Boards, we found three themes of punitive parole decision-making: (a) preserving public confidence in the criminal justice system; (b) preserving penal proportionality; and (c) re-censuring an especially depraved moral character. The findings suggested that parole boards’ punitive discretion is multidimensional and complex. Such punitive discretion may be openly implemented, it may be cloaked as risk assessment, or decided without formal recognition. The findings further indicated that resentencing through discretionary parole may not only conflict with rehabilitation and risk aims, but may also raise challenges for retributive and deterrent penal policy. Implications for comparative parole policy are discussed.
Pushing and expanding the boundaries of the ‘criminology of the other’ and ‘enemy penology’ to the post-sentencing phase, this study aims to analyse parole for terror-related prisoners. For doing so, the study thematically analysed 207 decisions of the Israeli parole board for individuals labelled as ‘security prisoners’. It found that for security prisoners, the parole board employs a distorted version of the more discretionary-individualised logic that applies to ordinary prisoners. When performing such ‘enemy parole’ – and overwhelmingly denying parole to security prisoners – the parole board uses three conflicting discourses: security-group logic, responsibilisation and resentencing. Through these discourses, the parole board negotiates the categories of self/other and citizen/enemy in order to suspend the reintegrative components of ‘citizen parole’. In conclusion, ‘enemy parole’ is constructed as an exclusionary, punitive and exceptional process disguised as inclusionary, equal and legitimate.
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