From one recession to another: the lessons of a long-term political economy of punishment. The example of Belgium (1830-2014)

The long-term research conducted for Belgium is special in that, to date, it covers one of the longest periods studied to investigate the relation between economy and punishment, allowing us, inter alia, to place in perspective two crucial moments of economic history, the two financial crises followed by the severe recessions of 1930 and 2008.
Using, as a backdrop, Kondratiev’s theory of long economic cycles, the research shows that economic indicators, identified for each period so as to evaluate adequately the level of economic security in a given society, are significantly correlated with punishment indicators and, in particular, with detention rates. Our argument is that this level of economic security should be understood as the result of two components: the evolution of the global mass of available economic resources but also, starting from the inter-war period, the way these resources were redistributed through the emergence of a “social policy component”.
In addition, the analysis made in a temporal logic focusing on one country – Belgium - is completed by a transversal approach whereby the varieties of capitalism are associated with specific levels of punishment, as highlighted by international comparative research, thus arriving at a two dimensional framework to explain Belgium specific’s position.