Abstract

LASSALLE, Martina. On the prohibition of murder and the criminal punishment. Iztapalapa. Rev. cienc. soc. humanid. [online]. 2022, vol.43, n.92, pp.221-246.  Epub Mar 18, 2022. ISSN 2007-9176.  https://doi.org/10.28928/ri/922022/aot3/lasallem.

This article proposes a sociological reflection on the problem of the prohibition of murder and its penal punishment. We will argue that the penal punishment of murder has a symbolic function related to the production, reproduction and communication of dominant social meanings and values of contemporary societies. For that reason, we will seek to describe the main characteristics of this function, which often remains unexplored in instrumentalist analyses of punishment. In particular, we will try to show the manner in which individual life is produced as a hegemonic social value through differential penalization practices. These practices show that penal punishment is always, at the same time, universalizing and differential or selective. We will ultimately see that the penal field is a field of disputes for the production of fundamental social values and meanings. That is, a field of struggle for the production of hegemony.

Keywords : criminal system; prohibition of murder; individual life; penal punishment; hegemony.

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