Penal reform fails whenever it is detached from general social progress

Evidence

So long as the social consciousness is not in a position to comprehend and act upon the necessary connection between a progressive penal program and progress in general, any project for penal reform can have but doubtful success, and failures will be attributed to the inherent wickedness of human nature rather than to the social system. The inevitable consequence is a return to the pessimistic doctrine that man’s evil nature can be tamed only by depressing the prison standard below that of the lowest free classes. The futility of severe punishment and cruel treatment may be proven a thousand times, but so long as society is unable to solve its social problems, repression, the easy way out, will always be accepted. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 969

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the Marxist base-superstructure claim that law penal reform is epiphenomenal; connects to the book’s overall critical-theory frame and later abolitionist criminology. — connects to: Failed penal reform collapses back into harsher punishment; Punishment policy cannot reduce crime independently of the social order — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 968; Externally imposed institutions fail when they contradict socially embedded ways of doing things. — Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, Institutional Bricolage and Commoning…, 131 (+4 more)