Comments by Ashley T. Rubin

This review highlights several key contributions of David Garland's Law and Order Leviathan, especially his updated definition of the “penal state” and his attention to its variable nature. It then shifts to historicize the penal state concept, describing the emergence of a penal state in the American context after the Revolution. Finally, it contrasts the weak and challenged early penal state to the contemporary monstrous penal state described Garland describes. In identifying a wide continuum of penal states, the review encourages scholars to identify other penal states with the goal of enabling more general theorizing of the penal state.