PUNISHMENT IN EUROPE
Documentation, analysis, projects, and data by topic.
Unlike in the United States, punishment is hardly politicized in most European countries. There is a pervasive idea that criminal legal systems are neutral, fair, and effective; that they are not racialized and gendered; that they do not punish very much. Such uncritical views obscure both the harms of punishment and alternative visions of society.
The reality is that people across Europe are far too often fined, held in pretrial detention, jailed, or otherwise placed under carceral control. And these consequences are disproportionately brought upon racialized people and communities, people with lower incomes, migrants, and other non-majority groups.
How Europe punishes is influenced in some countries by their histories of colonialism, and is driven today across Europe by economic structures and the “politics of pushbacks”–how Europe polices its external borders and reinforces exclusionary definitions of what it means to be European.
Justice Collective works to change these assumptions and realities.
LATEST
Want to observe court hearings but unsure where to start?
Our new Legal Guide for Courtwatching – created in collaboration with the criminal defense law clinic Freie University Berlin – walks you through every step of the process. This guide goes beyond being a practical resource – it’s an invitation to engage in courtwatching as a form of activism.