Beholding justice and punishment

Each of the following chapters wrestles with the passage of time, how it is divided, and how it features in experiences of “justice” and punishment. We tend to think of time as an abstract concept, but what these chapters make clear is that while it does operate on this level, it also works on the symbolic and physical planes of experience. Attending to the sensory renders, these dimensions more tangible, lending flesh and blood to our subjects as they navigate “justice” and punishment. Each contribution in this section reveals textures to the way our senses interweave with time in complex and contradictory static fluidities in processes of punishment. This opening section introduces each of the chapters that follows, lightly drawing connections between their treatments of time in different contexts, cultures, and experiences of “justice”. Eamonn’s use of “beholding” is a fruitful means of conceptualising the relationship between senses and time, teasing out the multiplicities of temporal experience in the context of justice. We then discuss how the sensory enables a broader understanding of how power flows through time in the settings explored by each of the chapters before moving on to consider how senses of time are distorted in the criminal justice system – speeding up, slowing down, staying put, and running low, not necessarily as discrete events but in relation to subjectivities, positions, and criminal justice processes. We conclude with a few words about what this means for criminology.