A Social History of Punishment

What is punishment for? Is it a moral act or an emotional one? Is it retribution? Which countries or societies punish well, and is the U.S. one of them? David W. Garland, professor of law and sociology at New York University and author of Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition and The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society discusses the social history of punishment and how our own criminal justice system fits in.