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Coercive Normalization and Family Policing: The Limits of the ‘Psy-Complex’ in Australian Penal Systems

Victoria University, Australia

Much contemporary social and historical research on problem children and families focuses on the different kinds of power deployed in a complex of legal and non-legal settings. This article reviews socio-legal studies in Europe, Australia and the UK, and additional archival evidence in Victoria, Australia, in relation to a shift towards positivist and ‘welfarist’ approaches to the problem of child criminality and family regulation from the turn of the 20th century. The aim is to assess the applicability for Australia of trends in European social theory that emphasize non-coercive, non-legal correction of families, a productive rather than repressive form of power which incites families to seek to align their conduct to social norms. The article argues that ‘coercive normalization’ - systems of knowing and acting upon children and families arising from the penal system and images of threat - is a significant presence in the complex of power relations that make up a genealogy of family and child regulation in Australia.

Key Words: family • history • juvenile justice • power • psy-knowledge

Social & Legal Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, 113-129 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0964663907073452


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