The Impact of Punishment on Families in Cambodia

• In Event: Race, Culture, and the Colonial Dimensions of Familial Punishment

Abstract

This paper considers how prison and criminal justice impact upon families in Cambodia. It draws upon collaborative work with an NGO in Siem Reap. In Cambodia, the harms of punishment are grounded in the country’s history as a former French Colonial State, the development of law, punishment and criminal justice, and the particular dimensions of family life. Traditionally Cambodia had strong values of filial piety and reciprocity, with community-based residence of extended families. In 1975-79 the Khmer Rouge totalitarian state enforced major disruptions to traditional familial values and patterns in favour of centralised control. The genocide in this period is estimated to have killed 1.7 to 3 million people, particularly targeting ‘intellectual’ classes and decimating expert and professional groups such as doctors and teachers, and the infrastructure of the country. Cambodia has been left with intergenerational trauma, high rates of social inequality and poverty, and a lack of education, health, and support services. Cambodia’s criminal justice system is punitive, and prison sentences are often given for minor crimes. Yet prison sentences and punishment are stigmatising within families and communities. The paper considers how culturally-specific, locally produced theoretical frameworks are necessary to conceptualise the historical, social, and familial dimensions of punishment.

Author

• Rachel Condry, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford