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Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy
An original transatlantic history of the invention of the corrections profession and of ensuing debates about punishment’s purposes and prisoners’ rights.
Impermissible Punishments explores the history of punishment inside prisons and how governments grappled with obligations to justify the punishments they impose. Legal scholar Judith Resnik charts the creation of the corrections profession and weaves together the stories of people who made rules for prisons and the stories of those living under the resulting regimes.
Resnik maps three centuries of shifting ideas, norms, and legal standards aiming to draw lines between permissible and impermissible punishments. Her account documents the impact of World War II, the United Nations, the US Civil Rights movement, and the pioneering prisoners who insisted that law should protect their individual dignity. Taking us to the present, Resnik analyzes the expansion of imprisonment, the inability of public and private prisons to provide safe housing, and the impact of abolition politics.
Exploring the interdependency of people in and out of prisons, Impermissible Punishments examines what governments committed to equality owe to the people they detain and argues that many contemporary forms of punishment need to end.
Impermissible Punishments explores the history of punishment inside prisons and how governments grappled with obligations to justify the punishments they impose. Legal scholar Judith Resnik charts the creation of the corrections profession and weaves together the stories of people who made rules for prisons and the stories of those living under the resulting regimes.
Resnik maps three centuries of shifting ideas, norms, and legal standards aiming to draw lines between permissible and impermissible punishments. Her account documents the impact of World War II, the United Nations, the US Civil Rights movement, and the pioneering prisoners who insisted that law should protect their individual dignity. Taking us to the present, Resnik analyzes the expansion of imprisonment, the inability of public and private prisons to provide safe housing, and the impact of abolition politics.
Exploring the interdependency of people in and out of prisons, Impermissible Punishments examines what governments committed to equality owe to the people they detain and argues that many contemporary forms of punishment need to end.
792 pages, Hardcover
Published October 10, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 10, 2025
This book is a quite long, high-level treatise on the history of prisoner rights and evolving standards of human decency for a group of people that often gets ignored and stigmatized by society - the detained. I picked this up because I'm interested in prison reform and thanks to this book, even if the author doesn't stand completely for this aim, I'm even more on the side of prison abolition, whereas previously that was an extreme position for me (I used to work as a courtroom clerk and I also side with the victims' rights movement.)
To explore its central theme, this book analyzes the extraordinary change in attitudes and the bureaucratic grinding that it took to end the practice of whipping in Arkansas prisons in the 1960s and 1970s, in a state that had some of the more deplorable conditions for incarcerated Americans at the time. It also branches out into higher-level depictions that indicate that Arkansas was not unusual for its time.
The book could often get bogged down in dry recitations of legal procedure and descriptions of parties involved, which made it read like a legal brief or an academic textbook. It's a shame the narrative wasn't more gripping because otherwise its audience is likely limited to legal scholars, public policy wonks, and nerds like me. I found the topic interesting though even though reading this was a long haul that opened my eyes to the gruesome practices that occured, and still occur, in state prisons.
Especially gruesome was the attitude that prevails today, and why I came to the side of prison abolition. This idea that the state has the right to classify a group of people marked for incarceration as deserving of different rights and standards of well being than the rest of the population simply because they've committed a crime shouldn't belong in a civilized society in my mind. Particularly since poverty and race are disproportionately punished, something I also saw while working as a courtroom clerk, even though at least in Oregon, we afford inmates the dignity of calling them inmates and not prisoners, and allowing them to wear plainclothes while facing trial.
Today issues of forced labor, overcrowding, and solitary confinement remain, though prisons are no longer just instruments of torture creating a virtually enslaved class of people. The attitude that considers incarcerated people to be enslaved wards of the state may have changed, and some of the implements of torture have ended, but in practice it has not. I can also see the medieval attitudes toward prisoners from the turn of the century reflected in the practices of ICE today. I was left questioning what effect warehousing ever-increasing numbers of people in deplorable conditions has on decreasing crime and ensuring safety, as well as encouraging rehabilitation and deterrence.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
To explore its central theme, this book analyzes the extraordinary change in attitudes and the bureaucratic grinding that it took to end the practice of whipping in Arkansas prisons in the 1960s and 1970s, in a state that had some of the more deplorable conditions for incarcerated Americans at the time. It also branches out into higher-level depictions that indicate that Arkansas was not unusual for its time.
The book could often get bogged down in dry recitations of legal procedure and descriptions of parties involved, which made it read like a legal brief or an academic textbook. It's a shame the narrative wasn't more gripping because otherwise its audience is likely limited to legal scholars, public policy wonks, and nerds like me. I found the topic interesting though even though reading this was a long haul that opened my eyes to the gruesome practices that occured, and still occur, in state prisons.
Especially gruesome was the attitude that prevails today, and why I came to the side of prison abolition. This idea that the state has the right to classify a group of people marked for incarceration as deserving of different rights and standards of well being than the rest of the population simply because they've committed a crime shouldn't belong in a civilized society in my mind. Particularly since poverty and race are disproportionately punished, something I also saw while working as a courtroom clerk, even though at least in Oregon, we afford inmates the dignity of calling them inmates and not prisoners, and allowing them to wear plainclothes while facing trial.
Today issues of forced labor, overcrowding, and solitary confinement remain, though prisons are no longer just instruments of torture creating a virtually enslaved class of people. The attitude that considers incarcerated people to be enslaved wards of the state may have changed, and some of the implements of torture have ended, but in practice it has not. I can also see the medieval attitudes toward prisoners from the turn of the century reflected in the practices of ICE today. I was left questioning what effect warehousing ever-increasing numbers of people in deplorable conditions has on decreasing crime and ensuring safety, as well as encouraging rehabilitation and deterrence.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
January 5, 2026
Very useful background and coverage of the foundational set of prisoner's rights cases. The transnational context at the beginning felt a little strange however, and I think Resnick could have justified her conclusions a little better (can't tell if they were cut for time or just not the focus of this book, but once introduced I think I needed a bit more to get on board with her approach). Also 600 pages is a lot of pages lol
April 9, 2026
Impermissible Punishments is a great example of what an academic book should be. Resnik takes her specialty, nourishes with depth that only a true expert can do, yet presents a book accessible to anyone while still preserving the central arguments that make any work shine. At its core, Impermissible Punishments is a gargantuan read about a 'hot' topic: the US prison system. With more accessible reads (>600 pages sure is a lot) and a thousand different approaches, readers may be wary of what Resnik may add to our understanding. There is no need to be. Across three sections, Resnik provides a thorough deconstruction and critique of the prison system, neatly tying elements of philosophical, judicial, political and economic arguments to tackle democracy's struggle with the permissibility of punishments.
The book is split into three sections that can broadly be characterized as philosophically, judicially and (politically and economically) focused. Simultaneously, they can be categorized much more neatly into distinct periods: the 1800s - 1950ish, the early 1960s to 1970, and 1970 and beyond. Needless to say, the barriers between such approaches are hazy, with Resnik pointing this out throughout.
In the first section, Resnik focuses on two central threads that inform the rest of her work. Focusing on history alone, Resnik chronicles the nature of punishment throughout various times and places, documenting waterboarding, torture, tread-milling and more. These are the original impermissible punishments, a baseline which democratic ideals must contend with. This then inspires the other thread, chronicling those seeking to justify and determine what is the best methods of prison's punishments. Through this portion the IPC/IPPC and Howard's League emerge as central actors, driven by early prison thinkers like Benthem, de Tocqueville and Howard. Over the course of nearly a century, these clubs bring the penitentiary to the international scene, codifying limits, as well as developing a nascent sovereignty to prisons. Thrown into tumult by rising demands of an essentially conservative and observational body, the section ends with the fall of the IPPC for its weak stance (and even support) of fascism, along with the more positive development of the UNs 1955 Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
Despite formally covering only five years, Resnik stakes her greatest contributions in a section diving deeply into punishment and prisons interaction with the law. For all the grand statements on ideals in the previous section, prisons operated in wildly different manners and according to the conceptions of individuals in practice. In few places in America was this more grotesque in the early 1960's than in Arkansas. Returning to the introductory message on a petition to end whipping Resnik documents legal battles transforming the landscape of prison operations, starting with whipping, and moving to arguing the constitutionality of the entire prison system. From all sorts of inhumane punishments and terrible conditions, the creation of a legal framework to defend the constitutional rights of inmates arises, but not without controversy. Plagued by attacks from state actors, lack of justice, political hurdles and wordings meant to retain prison discounts, Resnik paints a wonderfully horrid and contrived picture of a framework again arising as if a priori, but in actuality equally bound by whims and restraint. The legal framework that arises limits (at least in theory) the worst excesses of punishment, but importantly, serves to constrain itself on limiting the sovereignty of the state while largely failing to recognize the rights of the imprisoned.
The final section documents the grim reality of legal changes stanched by new actors and political issues. Documenting the slow and incomplete process of prison reform, the chapter starts much like the last one documenting legal battles. Slowly, however, it transitions to describe political interference by shifting wills, also becoming manifest in a judicial system bent on restricting its ability to make prescriptions. As massive incarceration really takes off, the description of the modern day would be remiss not to also touch on the economic problems put forth, again shaping alternatives in thought on prison system function. With a full analysis of the factors put forth, the final chapters do a solid job at covering what comes next, questioning what we now value, and showing the challenges in a nation at crossroads in more ways than one.
I struggle with a verdict for the subtitle of this book, as it presents something perhaps deeper than prisons becoming a problem for democracy and rather seems to reflect incarceration as a permanent thorn in the side of democracy, since its conception. In this rare case, I think the book exceeds its own framing, with every page contributing to a full analysis of what prisons mean to our political and judicial systems. What is permissible for criminals to endure? What is the purpose of punishment? These questions take a philosophical lens at the beginning of the book, but in seeing ourselves in the reflection of the answers, Resnik asks us to practically consider what we bring about. Reflecting on what she wrote for me, hopefully in our answers we find what we need to heal, both in ourselves and society.
The book is split into three sections that can broadly be characterized as philosophically, judicially and (politically and economically) focused. Simultaneously, they can be categorized much more neatly into distinct periods: the 1800s - 1950ish, the early 1960s to 1970, and 1970 and beyond. Needless to say, the barriers between such approaches are hazy, with Resnik pointing this out throughout.
In the first section, Resnik focuses on two central threads that inform the rest of her work. Focusing on history alone, Resnik chronicles the nature of punishment throughout various times and places, documenting waterboarding, torture, tread-milling and more. These are the original impermissible punishments, a baseline which democratic ideals must contend with. This then inspires the other thread, chronicling those seeking to justify and determine what is the best methods of prison's punishments. Through this portion the IPC/IPPC and Howard's League emerge as central actors, driven by early prison thinkers like Benthem, de Tocqueville and Howard. Over the course of nearly a century, these clubs bring the penitentiary to the international scene, codifying limits, as well as developing a nascent sovereignty to prisons. Thrown into tumult by rising demands of an essentially conservative and observational body, the section ends with the fall of the IPPC for its weak stance (and even support) of fascism, along with the more positive development of the UNs 1955 Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
Despite formally covering only five years, Resnik stakes her greatest contributions in a section diving deeply into punishment and prisons interaction with the law. For all the grand statements on ideals in the previous section, prisons operated in wildly different manners and according to the conceptions of individuals in practice. In few places in America was this more grotesque in the early 1960's than in Arkansas. Returning to the introductory message on a petition to end whipping Resnik documents legal battles transforming the landscape of prison operations, starting with whipping, and moving to arguing the constitutionality of the entire prison system. From all sorts of inhumane punishments and terrible conditions, the creation of a legal framework to defend the constitutional rights of inmates arises, but not without controversy. Plagued by attacks from state actors, lack of justice, political hurdles and wordings meant to retain prison discounts, Resnik paints a wonderfully horrid and contrived picture of a framework again arising as if a priori, but in actuality equally bound by whims and restraint. The legal framework that arises limits (at least in theory) the worst excesses of punishment, but importantly, serves to constrain itself on limiting the sovereignty of the state while largely failing to recognize the rights of the imprisoned.
The final section documents the grim reality of legal changes stanched by new actors and political issues. Documenting the slow and incomplete process of prison reform, the chapter starts much like the last one documenting legal battles. Slowly, however, it transitions to describe political interference by shifting wills, also becoming manifest in a judicial system bent on restricting its ability to make prescriptions. As massive incarceration really takes off, the description of the modern day would be remiss not to also touch on the economic problems put forth, again shaping alternatives in thought on prison system function. With a full analysis of the factors put forth, the final chapters do a solid job at covering what comes next, questioning what we now value, and showing the challenges in a nation at crossroads in more ways than one.
I struggle with a verdict for the subtitle of this book, as it presents something perhaps deeper than prisons becoming a problem for democracy and rather seems to reflect incarceration as a permanent thorn in the side of democracy, since its conception. In this rare case, I think the book exceeds its own framing, with every page contributing to a full analysis of what prisons mean to our political and judicial systems. What is permissible for criminals to endure? What is the purpose of punishment? These questions take a philosophical lens at the beginning of the book, but in seeing ourselves in the reflection of the answers, Resnik asks us to practically consider what we bring about. Reflecting on what she wrote for me, hopefully in our answers we find what we need to heal, both in ourselves and society.
March 23, 2025
Some form of punishment is normally applied after conviction for crime or other serious misdeeds. The usual punishments are prescribed by legislative enactment or, occasionally, may follow from prior judicial decisions. The purpose of punishment is often, however, a matter of great debate. The traditional criminological and justice viewpoints hold that punishment is a means of retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, or incarceration for the crimes previously committed. The United States Constitution even briefly addresses the nature of punishment by banning the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishment.” But, if punishment is legally permissible, are there official actions that may amount to an impermissible punishment? This book is the product of a distinguished professor of law at Yale; an attorney with extensive criminal justice experience; and a public interest law activist of distinction. Resnik was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and named a Carnegie Fellow with a significant research grant. She is the founding director of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale. Resnik’s scholarship focuses on the relationship of democratic values to government services such as courts and. Prisons; contemporary conflicts over privatization of government services; practices of punishment; and equality and gender. In this book, the author specifically addresses prisons and corrections and questions their dramatic impact on our democratic society. The author begins this book with a federal case from Arkansas which challenged whipping as a form of punishment in prison. The book’s introduction is an extended description of the ways punishment has been applied over the centuries. The author uses the example of prison whipping to explore how our societal ideas of the proper and permissible use of forms of punishment like whipping have evolved. The following chapters thoroughly examine the ideas of punishment beginning in the 1800s: how our ideas of punishment have changed over the centuries; how the accepted means of punishment have developed; and how ideas about incarceration and imprisonment have developed. The text highlights individual prisoners, their stories, and the effects of punishment on their personal lives. This is a big book with extensive notes supporting all aspects of the text. It should, however, be essential reading for any one interested in the place of punishment in the corrections institutional policies of a democratic society.
September 9, 2025
Impermissible Punishments is a high-level work of non-fiction dealing with the prison system in the state of Arkansas and the legal issues that have arisen surrounding what types of punishment are or are not permissible, according to the US Constitution. Given the title of the book, I was hoping for a more sociologically focused text, examining over time and cultures how humans punish one another and how those punishments get codified. Instead the book is micro-focused on the historical facts of the Arkansas penal system, which the author argues is representative of the US system as a whole, and selected because of some landmark court decisions that occurred there. This makes for a somewhat repetitive reading experience over the course of a long book, especially without a compelling narrative thread to tie related but disparate events together. Best for a reader with an interest in legal history, do not go in expecting sociology.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews