Project description
A closer look at the logic of punishment
Punishment is central to law and order, but the logic behind it is often unclear. Why do societies punish, and how did punishment become increasingly severe? The ERC-funded P-AGE project aims to study a concept known as social defence, which has guided criminal justice for over a century. Instead of examining current laws, the project will trace how international groups and reformers shaped our modern ideas of justice. It will investigate the hidden ‘why’ behind our legal systems, which includes the justifications used to penalise people. By exposing these roots, the project seeks to spark a conversation about whether our current approach to punishment is appropriate for society today.
Objective
The commonly accepted reason for the right to punish is the defence of society, or social defence. However, its meaning in Western criminal justice remains unclear. In an increasingly punitive age, punishments have become harsher, irrespective of the seriousness of the crime. It is therefore necessary to scrutinise the episteme behind punishment. In fact, despite its profound impact on individuals’ lives, the penal system lacks an adequate normative foundation because social defence functions as an implicit paradigm without a clear elaboration. P-AGE’s objective is to analyse the long-term discourse on social defence and its current transnational relevance, with the ultimate goal of understanding how and why punishment came to be perceived as an adequate response to various societal issues. More specifically, P-AGE sheds light on the criminological legal debate on the concept of social defence, a debate that has been largely overlooked in scholarly literature. Social defence was first theorised at the turn of the 20th century within the underexplored field of Positivist Criminology. This concept has persisted until today, due to the post-WWII emergence of the New Social Defence (NSD) movement, an association of criminal law reformers who worked in concert with the United Nations Social Defence Research Institute (UNSDRI), now called the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), in shaping current crime policy programmes. P-AGE investigates this historical setting and development in order to understand what social defence means and to make the implicit paradigm of the punitive age explicit. P-AGE’s methodology employs the epistemic community model to identify and analyse the transnational network of actors and ideas that substantiate social defence. The project blends critical criminology, intellectual legal history, and policy analysis to rewrite the history of punitive reason by foregrounding the key concept of social defence.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion philosophy epistemology
- humanities history and archaeology history
- social sciences law criminology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
30123 Venezia
Italy
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.