No conviction, no consequences? Examining the consequences of the state’s failure to punish

• In Event: Collateral consequences, criminal records and employment

Abstract

Collateral legal consequences follow a criminal conviction and significantly increase penal burdens imposed on criminal offenders: yet, these sanctions continue to be considered as subordinate in importance when compared to punishment. To substantiate a claim that such sanctions are equally – if not even more – important to the state’s repressive and exclusionary ambitions, I examine a peculiar case in which punishment (that is presumably deserved) fails to be imposed, but significant consequences akin to those usually arising from punishment nevertheless take effect. Using the examples of citizenship deprivation and denial of repatriation of suspected offenders, I demonstrate how countries work to deny rights and entitlements that pertain to all segments of the affected person’s life, including education, labor, family life, social welfare, political participation and so on. In other words, rather than seeking to punish such citizens, countries seek to eradicate them from all spheres of social, economic, and political life. The paper concludes by aiming to articulate the profile of a (suspected) offender who is commonly exposed to this form of (penal) exclusion.

Author

• Milena Tripkovic, University of Edinburgh