Over the last fifteen years, the analytical field of punishment and society has witnessed an increase of research developing the connection between economic processes and the evolution of penality from different standpoints, focusing particularly on the increase of rates of incarceration in relation to the transformations of neoliberal capitalism.

Bringing together leading researchers from diverse geographical contexts, this book reframes the theoretical field of the political economy of punishment, analysing penality within the current economic situation and connecting contemporary penal changes with political and cultural processes. It challenges the traditional and common sense understanding of imprisonment as 'exclusion' and posits a more promising concept of imprisonment as a 'differential' or 'subordinate' form of 'inclusion'.

This groundbreaking book will be a key text for scholars who are working in the field of punishment and society as well as reaching a broader audience within law, sociology, economics, criminology and criminal justice studies.

Dario Melossi is Professor of Criminology in the School of Law of the University of Bologna. After having been Editor-in-Chief of Punishment and Society he is currently Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Criminology.

Máximo Sozzo is Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the Social and Juridical Sciences Faculty of the National University of Litoral (Santa Fe, Argentina). He is also Adjunct Professor at the School of Justice of Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia).

José A. Brandariz-García is an Associate Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of A Coruna (Spain), and member of the Executive Board of the European Society of Criminology.