By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Post­war Security and Penal­welfarismThe early post­war years were defined by a number of characteristics that formed thebasis of a solid and secure society. Not only were Anglophone societies able to takepleasure in the comforts of economic prosperity and a strong welfare state, the highlevel of public involvement in society also served to strengthen community ties andwith it social cohesion. These solid and stable elements of society resounded in thepenal policy of that day, where a strong penal­welfare framework prevailed. Garland(2001: 44) explains this phenomenon:Like all social institutions, penal­welfarism was shaped by a specifichistorical context and rested upon a set of social structures andcultural experiences. Its ways of thinking and acting made sense tothose who worked in the field, but they also resonated with thestructures of the broader welfare state society, and with the ways oflife that these reflected and reproduced. Penal­welfarism drewsupport from – and relayed support to – a particular form of state anda particular structure of class relations … In short, its characteristicways of thinking and acting, particularly its modernism and its‘social’ rationality, were embedded in the forms of life created by thepolitical and cultural relations of the post­war years.The strength of penal­welfarism was drawn from the economic, social and politicalstructure of the post­war years. This involved in particular:(a) Security and wellbeingAnglophone societies during the early post­war years were characterised by thestrong presence of the welfare state. This form of governance was one based oninclusion and solidarity, where it was anticipated that all citizens would be broughttogether on an equal footing (Garland, 2001). The ability of the strong welfare stateto provide cross­class security and stability allowed citizens to feel protected andsecure in their daily lives. At the same time, the extensive welfare state was fundedlargely by ‘full employment’ (Broadberry, 1994; Hazledine, 1984; Rosenberg,1960) 4 . During the 1950s, all Anglophone societies were able to benefit fromexceptionally low levels of unemployment. The average percentage of citizensunemployed from 1956 to 1957 was: in Australia 2.2, Canada 4.9, United Kingdom4The term ‘full employment’ has been used to denote the high level of employment in any givensociety and has differed across countries and over time. The general consensus is that fullemployment is based on the lowest margin of unemployment that can be sustained without incurringsignificant pressures on the economy (Fisher, 1946; Gower, 1989)11