The most defining political change that Garland touches upon is the symbolic rise of the victim. He emphasizes the fact that the victim has become the ‘centre piece’ of contemporary penality and uses the victim to accentuate key differences between the modern system and penal-welfarism. Garland insists that victimless crimes no longer exist, as society now fills the void and takes on the role of the victim, because all crime hampers the general public’s quality of life. Society experiences crime in a new, collective way that exacerbates the fear of crime at an everyday level and according to Garland, this gave birth to the criminology that exists in our contemporary system, the criminology of everyday …show more content…
Under the penal-welfare system, prisons act as a last resort, as it prefers to utilize other modes of punishment that reflect a more rehabilitative character. The nature of the contemporary system and its views on prevention and reduction, have allowed for the prison to become its most effective tool. Based on the ideas of Garland, there is now an assumption that prisons ‘do work’ as a valuable method to respond to the increased demand for public safety. Their success has lead to the utilization of custodial sentences and longer prison