Legitimizing theories of punishment

science or ideology? A critical analysis of dominant penal discourses in light of the concept of ideology in Marx and Engels

Abstract

The scope of this analysis is to review the great theoretical discourses on the legitimation of punishment and Criminal Law and their inability to materialize in terms of reality. Faced with the large gap between the normative programming they inspire and its effectiveness, the possibility is revealed that they are devoid of scientificity, as a rational discourse oriented towards the understanding of a certain set of evident phenomena, degenerating into ideological expedients of legitimizing a form of social control through the expression of the power to apply penal sanctions. For the interpretation of the verified phenomenon, some of the main theses of Marx and Engels are revisited, as exposed in The German Ideology, and their peculiar way of defining the concept of ideology. Going through, in essence, the general characteristics of each of the analyzed theories, instead of understanding them by themselves, they are interpreted, according to the historical-dialectical method, as expressions of the hegemony of the class that emerges as dominant from the consolidation of the capitalist mode of production. Evidencing, thus, the ideological essence of such discourses, it is allowed that they be reassessed in their scope and purposes, providing a practice that, without intending their immediate abolition or overcoming, allows their exercise in terms less refractory to the dignity of the human person.