Author's personal copy

Crime Law Soc Change

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-018-9776-9

The penalization of protest under neoliberalism:

managing resistance through punishment

Ignacio González-Sánchez 1 & Manuel Maroto-Calatayud

2

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract The repression of anti-austerity protests in Spain from 2011 to 2014 consti-
tutes an example of how neoliberal developments are facilitated by the penal system as
it limits political resistances to the imposition of precarious working conditions and
social cuts. The limits imposed on contentious politics are both material (consisting of
banning acts that are prominent in social movement’s repertoire of contention, fining
demonstrators, etc.) and symbolic (consisting of transforming the meaning of legitimate
politics by imposing new legal and political definitions). This case study is used to
illustrate the interconnection between labor markets, social policies and the repression
of social protest, and to elaborate on Wacquant’s approach to the relationship between
punishment and other social institutions. It is at such times of political and economic
crisis when institutional interconnections seem particularly exposed, arguably enabling
more profound analyses.

Introduction

Since the start of the Great Recession in 2008, Spain has gone through profound social
and political transformations as one of the countries of southern Europe that has been
most heavily affected by the consequences of this economic turmoil. The Spanish
government’s response to the threat posed by the banking, public debt, and unemploy-
ment crises was an unremitting commitment to the austerity policies and giant budget
cuts to social services mandated by international organizations as a condition of the
2012 banking bailout. Spain, the fifth largest economy in the EU, had the second

* Ignacio González-Sánchez
nacho.gonzalez.sanchez@gmail.com

Manuel Maroto-Calatayud
manuel.maroto@uclm.es

1
School of Law, University of Girona, Girona, Spain
2
School of Legal and Social Sciences, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain
 Author's personal copy
González-Sánchez I., Maroto-Calatayud M.

highest unemployment rate in Europe (25,7% in 2012; reaching almost 60% for under
25 s by 2013) and retains this relative position today, even after a slow improvement in
employment figures. The reconfiguration of social services’ provision included unprec-
edented shifts in terms of political culture, such as the end of universal healthcare
coverage, which, since the transition to democracy in the late 70s, had been a hallmark
of Spain’s comparatively underdeveloped welfare system. A broad, business-friendly
reform to labor legislation was passed in 2012, restricting collective bargaining, making
it cheaper to lay off workers, and generally promoting greater ‘flexibility’ in labor
relations. Two general strikes were called before the end of 2012.
The political consequences of these changes to the economic landscape have been
equally notable. Widespread mistrust of the political establishment and the conservative
party now in power, who have been long involved in a large-scale corruption scandal
about the party’s political funding, facilitated an extraordinary increase in the intensity
and scope of alternative practices of social cooperation and protest. This led to the
emergence of the Indignados or 15-M movement in 2011, a unique anti-austerity
movement involving diverse social movements and militant groups (anti-eviction
platforms, student organizations, and political, labor and professional collectives) and
sectors of the population concerned about their future who had not been politically
active previously. The Indignados movement was inspired by the events of the Arab
Spring and in turn stimulated other similar movements such as Occupy Wall Street in
the US and later the Nuit Debut in France. Despite being a complex and diverse
movement, some common threads included: a reliance on non-violent direct action,
the occupation of public spaces, and the creation of inclusive spaces for political
socialization and cooperation. Public opinion polls showed that the movement was
perceived in a positive way by an impressively solid majority of the Spanish popula-
tion, including a considerable number of conservative voters. This cycle of mobiliza-
tion lasted from 2011 to 2014, its decline coinciding with the beginning of a new
political period that was more focused on electoral politics and entailed important
transformations, as the emergence of new political parties challenged the traditional
two-party system. In 2015, a number of laws (including a new ‘Law on the Protection
of Public Safety’ and a broad Penal Code reform) introduced severe sanctions for
certain actions that had been common to recent protests. The end of this cycle of
contentious politics also ran parallel to a complex and differentiated process: the
intensification of pro-independence sentiments in Catalonia, where the opposition to
the Spanish central government and the new focus on electoral politics converged into
an ever-stronger separatist movement that won a majority in the Catalan parliament for
the first time in 2015. This later led to some unique episodes in which political dissent
was repressed (such as the October 1, 2017 police intervention to stop the referendum
for independence, and the imprisonment of prominent Catalan politicians). Despite
their connections to previous repressive dynamics, these episodes will not be analyzed
here, as they are separate from the previous cycle of anti-austerity mobilizations.1

1
It is interesting to note, for example, that some of the Catalan political leaders who are now prosecuted on
charges such as sedition and rebellion due to their participation in separatist activities, were involved in the
design and implementation of austerity-based neoliberal policies as members of the party which governed
Catalunya from 2010 to 2015.
 Author's personal copy
The penalization of protest under neoliberalism: managing...

This paper considers the criminalization of anti-austerity demonstrations in the 2011–

2014 period as part of a broader process of neoliberal institutional development in Spain.
One interesting feature of these protests was the social characteristics of the participants,
who were largely young middle class educated people whose prospects had been
suddenly significantly worsened.2 Despite focusing on the repression of protests rather
than on the penalization of poverty, we try to apply and explore some of the analysis
carried out around the latter by Wacquant. In this case punishment mainly affects the
middle classes of both genders -rather than ‘lower class young male African-Americans’
[2]. Focusing on demonstrations also allows for a more specific analysis of the penal-
ization of political resistances to neoliberal labor and social policies. This approach also
expands on an idea that has been mentioned by Wacquant but scarcely developed in his
works: that European penalization is being carried out by police and tribunals, rather
than through the prison like in the US ([2]: 20–21; [3]: 121–125).
The first section of the paper will outline Wacquant’s ‘analytic breaks’ for exploring
processes of penalization, including: (a) the absence of a direct correlation between crime
rates and punitive responses (i.e. the number of people imprisoned in a country); (b) the
existence of a correlation between the increase in punitive responses and the decrease in
social protections; (c) the need to consider both the material and the symbolical aspects of
criminalization; and (d) the productive nature of penality. The last part of this section will
summarize (e) some of the main criticisms of Wacquant’s approach, including his potential
exaggeration of the disconnection between crime rates and increased punishment.
The second section of the paper will analyze the dynamics of penalization at work in
relation to the anti-austerity protests in Spain. It will specifically address (a) the
characteristics and effects of recent punitive legal reforms in Spain, including the
amendment of the Penal Code and of the system of administrative sanctions (mostly
fines directly imposed by the police) in the area of public order; (b) the intensive use of
certain police practices (identifications, stop and searches, and fines) and the increase in
expenditure on riot police units and material; and (c) the production of political
discourses that are extremely hostile to demonstrators and protests.
In the third section the features of the criminalization of anti-austerity protests in
Spain will be explored in light of the previous discussion of Wacquant’s ‘analytic
breaks’. It will be argued that (a) legal reforms were not introduced with the aim of
reducing crime, but for the purpose of defining certain activities that used to be legal
and legitimate as illegal, therefore producing new forms of illegality; (b) that this
production clearly fits into a broader political agenda of anti-labor reforms and social
spending cuts, and therefore the penalization process should be analyzed in its connec-
tion with the broader austeritarian social policies being put into force in Spain; (c) that
the effects of the criminalization of protests are both material and symbolic; and (d) that
these material and symbolic effects are ultimately oriented towards reaffirming the
authority of a newly-produced conception of State, one which has withdrawn from the
redistributive functions associated with the welfare state to focus almost exclusively on
the law-and-order aspect of government. The section will conclude with some remarks
on the importance of appreciating the nuances and analytical relevance of (e) the role of
resistances in shaping and influencing both the penalization processes and societal
neoliberal developments.

2
For demographic characteristics of demonstrators in Spain see Jiménez Sánchez [1].
 personal copy
González-Sánchez I., Maroto-Calatayud M.

The paper concludes with the stipulation that processes of criminalization in neo-
liberalism should not be considered predetermined, even within Wacquant’s framework
and the observation that addressing the repression of social protest might be important
for the revitalization of the study of punishment and society.

Punishment, neoliberalism and social protest: a framework for analysis

According to Wacquant [2], social policy, which has been in decline since the 60s, and
penal policy, which has been increasingly important since then, are two sides of the
same coin: the management of poverty. Thus, as the USA has become more neoliberal,
the state has flipped from social to penal policy, while putting on a spectacle of the fight
against crime for its citizens. These policy shifts involve transformations in the
treatment, image and value of crime and criminals.
Wacquant takes the evolution of imprisonment rates in the USA since 1973 as the
starting point for his analysis. Prior to this the number of prisoners remained stable for
some decades and slightly declined during the 60s. Wacquant charts how a decade later
the number of prisoners began to grow unexpectedly: it doubled in ten years and
quadrupled in twenty. In addition, more aggressive police models were introduced
along with zero tolerance policies. For the last two decades, however, crime rates have
steadily experienced a slight decline. Why did this change occur? Because of a
reconfiguration of the State and its missions, says Wacquant. The political project of
neoliberalism brings about the removal of the economic state, the diminishing of the
social state and the expansion of the penal state ([2]: 306–307) and the trope of
individual responsibility. Thus, this increase in incarceration is seen to be an attempt
to contain the disorders caused by two important social changes: on the one hand, the
abandonment of the Fordist model of wage labor and Keynesian compromise which in
turn instilled social insecurity into the lower and middle classes through new precarious
jobs; and on the other hand, the crisis of the ghetto as a tool for the maintenance of
socio-racial order after the Civil Rights movements in the 60s.
Contextualizing Wacquant’s theory for the purposes of this paper, therefore, we turn
to his analysis of punitive institutions ([2]: 287–288), which rests on the four basic
points explored below.

Penal policies are not exclusively a response to changes in crime rates

Common sense (and legal theory) tells us, that when someone commits a crime, the
State punishes them. Consequently, there ought to be some relationship between the
crime rate and the number of people imprisoned in a country. Wacquant highlights the
disconnection of these two variables in the USA: but this is not the only case in which
this relationship is more indirect and complicated than usually assumed. Interestingly,
the relationship between these two variables is far from being constant, sometimes
being positive, sometimes negative, sometimes strong, and sometimes weak (see [4]).
For instance, the number of prisoners in Spain is seven times higher now than in 1975,
while crime has declined slightly, enjoying overall stability for the last twenty years.
There was a strong positive correlation during the 80s, and there has been a weak
negative one since the 90s (see [5]).
 Author's personal copy
The penalization of protest under neoliberalism: managing...

According to Wacquant [2], it is not criminality that has changed, but rather
societal views on it. Resorting to prison has become more common. In Spain,
despite low crime rates sentences have been made increasingly longer over the
last 40 years and are currently among the highest in Europe [6]. The development
of the penal state, as Wacquant stipulates (2009), does not respond to an increase
in penal or crime insecurity, but to a wave of social insecurity. Hence penality can
be better understood if it is viewed as a result of cultural and political choices,
where the penal system is re-conceptualized as a political institution that is central
to neoliberalism.

Penal policies are linked to social policies

‘One cannot ferret out the causes, modalities and effects of carceral hyperinflation
without linking developments on the justice front with shifts in social policy’ ([2]: 99).
Social policy and penal policy share historical origins, they took shape as autonomous
specialties out of what had once been a common policy: the management of urban
poverty, which appeared during the industrialization process [7, 8]. Similarly, the far-
reaching changes that had occurred in both policies by the end of the twentieth century
have to be studied as mechanisms responding to disturbances introduced by neoliberal
policies. In the USA there has been a surprising synchrony between the reduction of
welfare and the increase in penal punishments, even as many of the underlying
philosophies and organizational forms endure.
Even though crime and punishment are not correlated in a constant way, strong
negative correlations have been registered between social and welfare policy invest-
ment and the number of people locked up in prisons [9, 10]. Wacquant [2] indicates that
social and penal policies must be considered together for there to be an adequate
understanding of how punishment functions and changes.

The effects of penal policies are both material and symbolic

Overcoming the conventional opposition between materialist and symbolic analyses is

the third basic pillar of Wacquant’s approach. Punishment is a complex social institu-
tion [11], so limiting its analysis to just one function is simplistic and does not account
for the reality nor the persistence of punishment. Whether theorists concentrate on the
materialist aspects of punishment, a critique Wacquant levels against much recent
critical criminology, or focus mainly on the symbolic functions of punishment, as a
Durkheimian approach might do, is ‘but an accident of academic history artificially
sustained by stale intellectual politics’ ([2]: xvi).
A better understanding of the important role played by the prison and penal policies
under neoliberalism can be reached by combining two analyses: the analysis of the
functions of control –which stresses the role of punishment in the maintenance of
hierarchies and control over dominated classes – and the analysis of the functions of
communication –which reinforce norms, set the limits and produce reality by inculcat-
ing social categories. ‘The prison symbolizes material divisions and materializes
relations of symbolic power’, ([2]: xvi). The examination of these two effects explains
how the penal state has become a cultural engine capable of churning out categories,
classifications and images that are spread to the rest of society.
 Author's personal copy
González-Sánchez I., Maroto-Calatayud M.

Penality is not just repressive, it’s also productive

According to the arguments laid forth thus far, the penal state may appear to be a mere
machine for repression. And yet, the penal state’s capacity for production is an integral
part of it. Penalization is part of the production of the neoliberal state, but its productive
capacity is not limited to this.
Wacquant follows Foucault in emphasizing the importance of abandoning the
‘repressive hypothesis’ around power (or powers). Powers operate through individuals
from the very instant of their constitution, producing them. Therefore, the ubiquitous
image of an abstract individual repressed by powers acting over them should be
abandoned. Power relations produce physical subjects, they act over the body and
produce ‘docile bodies’, but they also produce subjects of knowledge. Foucault
understood penality and the prison to be the producers of a ‘clinical knowledge about
the convicts’ ([12]: 249) and producers of ‘delinquency’, since this knowledge enables
certain segments of the population to be identified as delinquents. This is a key
consequence of the application of a selective penal system, which, rather than putting
an end to illegalities, distinguishes and administers them ([12]: 277), and in so doing
constitutes what comes to be understood as ‘criminal’.
In line with Bourdieu, the production of mental dispositions that state action entails
must be considered ([13]: 26), alongside the material divisions that flourish, for
example, how new categories of ‘public perception and state action’ shape State
responses ([2]: 30–31). Attention must also be paid to the material production involved
(i.e. the building of prisons, the creation of jobs and so on).
The penal state is not merely repressive: it constitutes a driving force of political and
cultural production. The capacity of the penal system to shape and value social
categories in broader society lays the basis for understanding the importance of
processes of criminalization and, as explored in the next section, political protest,
demonstrations, and their conditions of possibility and legitimacy.

Some criticisms of Wacquant’s approach

Wacquant’s work has not been received without critical assessment. Even though his
work is still being develloped and has so far been only briefly commented on, rather
than systematically evaluated (although see [14]: 175–230; [15]), some criticisms
deserve to be taken into account.
For example, Wacquant’s idea of the crime and punishment disconnection is said to
be exaggerated to the extent that it ‘transforms a sociological insight into an untenable
hyperbole’ ([16]: 487). Besides, it has been argued that a connection between homi-
cides or violent crimes and punishment does exist, albeit nuanced [17]. Although
Wacquant [18] has claimed that he does not suggest a complete disconnection, his
emphasis on this new way of understanding how punishment works can be seen to
encourage an interpretation that there is no connection at all between crime and
punishment. The fact that the lack of correlation does not necessarily mean that there
is no connection, but that this connection is indirect, therefore, has, perhaps, not been
clearly explained ([19]: 125), even though crime is dealt with at length in his books.
Perhaps the most serious criticism of Wacquant’s proposal is that causal mechanisms
are largely absent and that, therefore, the notion of neoliberalism does not take on a
 Author's personal copy
The penalization of protest under neoliberalism: managing...

particularly analytical or causal role therein ([20]:1358–1359; [21]: 781; [22]: 261). It
might be necessary to avoid such a macro approach or to incorporate input from
qualitative studies. At the very least making a more explicit attempt to link neoliberal
ideas with an expansive use of the penal system could help address this issue (see [23]).
Another criticism of Wacquant’s work is his lack of specification for Europe as he is
based in and focused on the United States ([14]: 218–219). However, as long as
precautions are taken relating to the specificity of each case, his work can be used to
analyze other cultural contexts, and herein, indeed, lies its value. His explanation
departs from foundations which allow for a reconceptualization of social and penal
processes; it introduces a more systematic, broader use of conceptual tools to the study
of punishment, stemming from Bourdieu (see [24, 25]). In addition, it allows effects to
be identified and linked to state reconfiguration. Nevertheless, it would not hurt for
proclamations that American penal policies have been adopted in Europe to be
delivered with more caution ([26]: 335).
Lastly, a particularly recurrent criticism of Wacquant’s work is that it does not reflect
the existence of resistances ([27]: 131–135) and this is explicitly assumed as a
limitation to his neoliberal penality thesis. Although some explicit resistances can be
found in Wacquant’s work,3 their existence is largely implicit in his theoretical frame-
work. The interaction between structures and subjective social conditions can be
grasped using the Bourdieusian concepts of field and habitus, to which Wacquant
adheres (see [30]: 7–12; [31]: 30–51). The use of the concept of bureaucratic field,
instead of ‘the State’, highlights the contingent nature of state actions, and creates space
for the analysis of struggles around policies (see [32]). The use of habitus breaks down
a deterministic view of people as merely reacting to macro forces, and hence makes it
possible to avoid fatalistic observations that ‘there is nothing to do against neoliberal-
ism’. Moreover, it allows for the possibility that agents in the penal system may offer
resistance – as is to be seen in the case of the Spanish judicial system.
In the next sections we consider the anti-austerity protests in Spain and the institu-
tional reaction to them using Wacquant’s framework, while bearing in mind some of the
criticisms and limitations of his approach. Thus, we try to show that punitive polices
cannot be accounted for as direct responses to crime but must be analyzed as devices
for neutralizing resistances that can influence the implementation of neoliberal policies.
Moreover, punishment is not dealt with in terms of penal measures in isolation, as
administrative sanctions and police action are also taken into account. This, along with
the fact that a population significantly different from the African American sub
proletariat is being considered, should help to broaden the possible areas in which an
analysis of neoliberal penality can be applied. Braithwaite’s [33] observation that
studies on punishment focus almost exclusively on the penalization of the poor is thus
also heeded. Moreover, even though clear causal mechanisms are not developed, the
marked neoliberal character of the process described is considered rich terrain for
thinking about them, especially given the Spanish context. This itself calls the very
application of the category ‘neoliberalism’ into question and makes space for the

3
Signing up at a gym in a Chicago ghetto appears in his works [28] as a strategy of individual resistance for
escaping the high levels of interpersonal violence and of police penalization, as a way of being ‘out of the
streets’ and to protect oneself from the structural violence of the US ghetto ([29]: 72).
 Author's personal copy
González-Sánchez I., Maroto-Calatayud M.

national variations of this international process, although this issue does not fall into the
scope of this paper and would certainly require a much more extensive study.

The criminalization of anti-austerity protests in Spain

Demonstrations in Spain enjoyed a sharp increase in number from the start of the
economic crisis in 2008, to 2012, peaking at over 36,000 demonstrations, more than
double the number from 2011 ([34]: 113). Given the issues most of these demonstra-
tions centered on, it can be argued that the labor reform and the budget cuts in social
services (health, education, care, etc.) were the principal motives of many of them. So,
state action begins to focus on these protests which are, in turn, directed against the
precarization of life.
In the face of protests, political institutions can make use of police and political reforms.
This reactive element allows issues of public order to be linked to concrete political
responses ([35]: 212). The criminalization of the protest, whose origin can be found in the
bureaucratic field, has consisted of, at least, three dimensions in the case study under
question: the modification of legal texts, police control, and political discourse.

Legislative production: more extensive criminal and administrative sanctioning

powers

In 2015, the Spanish parliament passed three different laws regulating public order: the
penal code, the law of public safety, and the law of private security. The conservative
government announced its intention to reform these laws in 2012, when social mobi-
lization against austerity measures was at its peak. For the purposes of this analysis, it is
pertinent to highlight five measures from the reformed penal code.
The scope of definitions of the crimes of assault against persons in authority,
resistance and disobedience was expanded by eliminating the requirement that resis-
tance should be ‘active’, and therefore potentially including forms of passive resistance.
Some common practices, like throwing ‘blunt objects’, became considered ‘potentially
dangerous’ to life, and therefore constitutive of aggravated assault (with prison terms of
up to 9 years). The reform also extended privileged protection to individuals who were
not previously entitled to it, including private security operators while working in
cooperation with public authorities.
A new offence is also included, consisting of breaching the peace (or threatening or
inciting to do so) by acting in groups; this is clearly in conflict with the value of
individual criminal responsibility, central to liberal legal thought. Again, when the
crime is committed under certain circumstances, that are clearly associated with
common practices in political demonstrations, it can be contemplated as an aggravated
offence (which means prison sentences of up to six years). These circumstances are
defined in a particularly vague and far-reaching way, such us using ‘dangerous
instruments’, acting ‘in the context of a large demonstration’, or when the perpetrator
covers their face to avoid identification.
Another new crime, the ‘invasion against the will of its owner’ of the headquarters or
offices of public or private services, even if they are open to the public, was introduced. This
practice was common in protests against banks in the Spanish anti-evictions movement.
 Author's personal copy
The penalization of protest under neoliberalism: managing...

The ‘distribution or public diffusion, through any means, of messages or slogans

which incite the commission of any crime of public order disturbance’ was also
criminalized. Meaning that publicly disseminating information about demonstrations
which eventually become violent, is considered a criminal offence. Even considering
the difficulty of establishing whether knowledge of said potentially violent nature was
possessed when the information was spread –which policing itself influences ([36]: 20–
22) – this makes it possible to punish people for the distribution of pamphlets, the
placement of posters, the sending of e-mails or the diffusion of events through social
media (twitter, Facebook, etc.). Social movement’s main means of organization and
spreading information are thus attacked.
The category of ‘criminal misdemeanors’ [37] is also removed from the penal code,
and a ‘minor offences’ category is introduced. The former ‘criminal misdemeanors’
were either removed from the penal code (to be reinstated as administrative faults) or
retained as minor offences. A significant difference is that the former ‘criminal
misdemeanors’ did not entail jail sentences nor produce criminal records, but the new
minor offences do. In Spain, when someone is sentenced to prison for the first time
with a sentence of under two years, the judge can suspend the sentence, or substitute it,
and thus avoid placing them in contact with the penitentiary system, as long as some
requirements are met (regarding the importance of this process in considering punish-
ment, see [38]: 182). Having a criminal record, for what used to be a mere misde-
meanor, means a greater chance of imprisonment for those sentenced to prison for the
first time. Although the reform establishes that minor offences should not be an
impediment for the prison sentence to be suspended, they do allow for admission to
prison, leaving it in the hands of the judge. That is, committing what used to be a
misdemeanor could act now as aggravating circumstances for recidivism.
Some other misdemeanors are stipulated to be considered under administrative,
rather than criminal law. Among other peculiarities associated with the pre-eminence
of executive powers over administrative regulation (as opposed to the centrality of the
judiciary in the criminal law system) this branch of law privileges the principle of
veracity of public authorities. This means that legally the statements of a police officer
during a judicial process are taken as valid and sufficient evidence to sustain charges,
unless proven otherwise. In such a case, a sanctioning administrative process is
initiated, after which there are two options: paying the fine or submitting an appeal
to the very executive body that dictated the sanction (the police). Only once allegations
are dismissed and the administrative path is exhausted, can a process of judicial review
can be initiated.
In short, harsher sanctions for acts involving disobedience to police officers and
restrictive regulations for demonstrations were introduced; some practices commonly
associated with the ‘repertoire of contention’ of active social movements were explic-
itly illegalized; and new legal ways of keeping records both of criminal and adminis-
trative offenders were implemented. The introduction of broad and vague definitions of
‘resistance to authority’ and ‘breach of the peace’ greatly extended the discretion of
police and executive authorities to sanction political behavior with an apparently valid
legal basis. Even if a judge dismisses the accusations for being ungrounded – which has
actually happened on a number of occasions – the whole process constitutes a
punishment in itself [39], with both punitive and deterrent effects (i.e. awaiting
citations, being afraid of being sentenced for months). In addition, in the case of being
 Author's personal copy
González-Sánchez I., Maroto-Calatayud M.

subject to sanctions through the administrative law system, the executive-controlled

procedure will clearly favor the interests of police officers, where the only chance of
effective review is to go through a chain of appeals in order to get to a judge. This way
of circumventing the procedural safeguards associated with criminal law postpones the
involvement of judges in reviewing police interventions, overriding constitutional
provisions protecting political activities in a process sometimes called ‘bureaucratic
repression’ ([40]: 27; [41]: 35, 59).
Apart from the reform of the Penal Code, a reform of the Law on the Protection of
Public Safety was also passed in 2015. The original piece of legislation was officially
enacted in 1992 to provide police with more tools to combat drug use and trafficking,
but also aimed to increase control over behaviors that were potentially challenging to
the political order – this was, after all, the year of the Olympic Games in Barcelona and
the Universal Expo in Seville ([42]: 249). The 2015 reform intensifies this latter
function. Among other infractions defined in this law, which allow for fines from
100 to €600,000, those that regulate behavior at demonstrations are particularly
striking, and are explored below.
Limitations are placed on the dissemination of images of police officers. The
disproportionate use of police force during anti-austerity protests, acknowledged even
by the major police union (El [43]), and the systematic non-identification of Police
Intervention Units (riot police4), making the reporting of inappropriate behavior almost
impossible, incited demonstrators to upload videos and pictures to online platforms.
Instead of promoting effective investigations to determine whether or not abuses of
power are taking place or re-enforcing police officers’ obligation to wear clearly visible
ID numbers, the new legislation forbids the dissemination of these images. This
measure affects the media too and has been said to threaten freedom of speech [46].
The new law also stipulated fines of up to €30,000 for non-criminal administrative
disobedience to authorities (art. 36.6), €600 in cases of ‘lack of respect or due
consideration’ to police officers.
Holding unauthorized protests near core infrastructure such as transport hubs or
telecom installations can entail fines of up to €600,000, with explicit reference to the
individual responsibility in these cases of those that could be considered the ‘organizers
and promoters’ of the event.
The ‘wrongful use’ of clothes covering the face of demonstrators became considered
an aggravating circumstance (art. 33.2 c). This involves a significant step because
simply wearing a piece of clothing becomes a basis for punishment. Again, where
‘wrongful use’ might apply is not very clear cut (i.e. does the law apply differently in
summer than in winter when it comes to balaclavas?). Proponents of this measure argue
that those who are not intending to do anything wrong do not have a reason to cover
their face and be unidentifiable. This stands out in sharp contrast to the lax attitude
towards riot police going unidentified, and with the use of infiltrated police in social
movements, which is sometimes explicitly defended ([47]: 19). Applying the same
reasoning, it could also be assumed that those policemen without visible identification
are going to commit irregularities. Neither assumption should be admissible in a legal
system that purportedly respects fundamental rights. The prohibition of acting dis-
guised or remaining unidentifiable recalls the harsh dynamics of control of dissent in

4
For an insightful approach to this group, see Jaime-Jiménez [44] and Palacios Cerezales [45].
 Author's personal copy
The penalization of protest under neoliberalism: managing...

the ancien régime, when ‘anonymity was of essence to any early form of industrial or
social protest’ and therefore was defined as a capital crime ([48]: 393).

Police control: identifications and increasing budgets in times of crisis

Police control at protests has increased by means of an increase in riot materials. In the
Spanish General State Budget, expenditure on riot gear and police protection material
increased by 1780% in 2013, going from 173,670 to 3.26 million euros. Large-scale
public investment in anti-riot material continued after the end of the protest cycle
around 2014: at the end of 2015, the Ministry spent 1.3 million on tear gas cans, despite
the fact that tear gas had not been used for twelve years. Some of these transactions
gave rise to suspicions that the decision makers had been influenced by private
financial interests [49]. Changes to the Prevention and Reaction Unit of the National
Police exemplify how public resources were diverted towards promoting public order:
this unit, which was originally set up to deal with serious public crises and anti-drug
operations, was reorganized to deal with public order issues, and mostly concentrated in
Madrid, where some of the major demonstrations happened and where important
political institutions are located. The unit is made up of 378 officers whose main
function is related to ‘public order and citizen security’, as support for riot police.5
Civil society platforms have repeatedly condemned police forces for resorting to
mass and indiscriminate identifications and fines. Applying these control techniques to
inherently collective protests is individualizing, silencing and depoliticizing. It makes it
difficult to articulate coordinated responses at the same time as curtailing the right to
assembly and demonstration ([40]: 18–19). It is estimated that from 2011 to 12 alone
nearly a thousand sanctions were initiated against people related to the Indignados
movement, amounting to almost 175,000 euros in fines [51]. If these police actions are
linked to the legal modifications discussed above, a dual purpose can be perceived: that
of dissuading people from protesting and that of amassing funds. A third effect which is
very much in line with a neoliberal understanding of the public sphere, is also discern-
ible: the use of fines serves to spread the perception that protest in public spaces is not a
right, but rather a ‘nuisance’ activity, that is therefore taxed to compensate the state.6
It has been said that the ways in which police control operates over protests is very
meaningful for understanding the relationships between social movements and the State.
Police forces are controlled by the executive branch, which shapes police action and
behavior to a high degree ([36]: 1, 15–17). Police actions based on aggressive reaction,
rather than on dialogical and preventive strategies, raise the cost of participating in protests
and have been observed to have a dissuasive effect, although there is also empirical
evidence to the contrary ([53]: 8; [54]: 134), and said dissuasive effect is probably related
to the degree of commitment any given individual might feel for the protest.

Political discourse: productive repression and social categorization

With regard to political discourse, two aspects can be highlighted: the stigmatization of
demonstrations and the justification of police practices of dubious legality. They are, of

5
See Blay [50] for recent evolution in Spanish police control of protests.
6
On the habitual neglect of fines in studies on punishment, see O’Malley [52].
 Author's personal copy
González-Sánchez I., Maroto-Calatayud M.

course, linked. High-ranking members of the government insisted that citizen demon-
strations were organized by ‘anti-establishment collectives’ whose only purpose was to
destabilize the institutional system. A powerful social definition is thus assigned to a
group: powerful because it stems from the State and groups installed in legitimated
positions of power ([55]: 129–130). Returning to the importance of bearing in mind the
symbolic dimension of punishment, Durkheim’s theory of punishment seems very
pertinent here (see [56]: 35; [57]: 59): the identification of behavior as criminal
generates a passionate act of communication which helps reassert the moral limits of
a group considered threatened. In this vein, broader definitions of criminal or illegal
behavior promote social categorization separating those who attend demonstrations
from those who do not. The insistence in portraying the Indignados as a reduced,
violent group, whose only aims are to create disorder is noteworthy, when everything
seems to indicate they are heterogeneous horizontal porous groups, whose main
strategies included civil disobedience and non-violent direct action ([58]: 336).
A particularly striking example of the criminalization of political acts can be seen in
commentaries leading up to a protest organized for September 25 in 2012 (25-S) under
the slogan ‘Occupy Congress’. The Government Delegate in Madrid announced that it
was a ‘coup d’état in disguise’ and that behind it there were ‘very radical groups, both
from the left and from the right’ [59]. In view of what happened, these messages can be
read as attempts to dissuade irresolute demonstrators. More importantly, it prepared a
justification for the harsh police intervention in the protest, which was characterized by
the use of force to disperse it. (Thus the police were not beating up ‘citizens partici-
pating legitimately in politics in a democracy’ but ‘radical-semi-putschists doing
something illegal’).
The government’s repeated instrumentalisation of the concept of the ‘illegal dem-
onstration’ reveals an intention to criminalize these protests. Like in other constitutional
democracies, in Spain, a political demonstration that the authorities have not been
previously notified of is not illegal per se ([50]: 18). According to the Spanish
Constitution, these demonstrations cannot be dispersed unless there are exceptional
circumstances that entail danger to persons or property. By insisting on the illegality of
unnotified demonstrations the authorities and the media send a distorted and restricted
picture of the legal scope of the freedom to assembly: labelling legitimate protest as
antisocial behavior, creating confusion and reducing potential participation. This
distorted representation of the legality of protests also encourages police forces to carry
out mass identifications and initiate sanctioning procedures against participants.
The production of ‘illegal protests’ in popular and political discourse is of particular
importance for a number of reasons. Firstly, the police practices enumerated above
make it seem as if for a protest to be legal, previous administrative authorization is
necessary, despite the fact that this is not the case according to the Spanish Constitution.
Secondly, notifying the authorities about a demonstration usually initiates a process of
unbalanced negotiation in which attempts are made to shape the nature and details of
the protest (time, itinerary, use of placards and other elements, and even the approxi-
mate attendance): thus conditioning and limiting the exercise of the right to assembly
([60]: 74). Other concerns, such as nuisances caused to shopkeepers, neighbors, or
tourists, are often invoked in order to restrict the scope of demonstrations, even though
these concerns do not constitute valid grounds for limiting a fundamental right which
should prevail over public order or security in legal terms ([61]: 114). Through these
 Author's personal copy
The penalization of protest under neoliberalism: managing...

police practices, not only is the effective and concrete exercise of a right curtailed, but
at a symbolic and ideological level demonstrations are being increasingly associated
with antisocial behavior and public order issues, rather than democratic political rights
([41]: 46). This could be considered an example of ‘governing through crime’, since
‘crime’ is used to reach undemocratic ends ([62: 271]): preventing or hindering
demonstrations and restricting freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.

Political repression in a democracy: the penal system as complementary

to social and labor policies

Bearing Wacquant’s theoretical framework in mind, one of the first observations to be

made is that the legal reforms introduced in Spain are not oriented towards reducing
crime or illegalities but, on the contrary, towards defining protest practices as criminal
or illegal that were not previously considered thus. From a strictly legal point of view,
the penal system is producing new crimes by expanding the scope and boundaries of
offences and legal definitions of deviant behavior to new areas. In a process of express
criminalization, the same protest action that three years ago would have been classified
as the exercise of a fundamental right, can today be explicitly punished by law. This of
course recalls debates on the processes of criminalization that are central to critical
criminology: who defines what a crime is, who is to be considered a criminal and who a
victim, etc. As commented above, this observation relates to one of Wacquant’s basic
arguments, the disconnection between crime and punishment, which calls the com-
monly held belief that penal institutions basically just react to variances in the com-
mission of crimes and illegalities into question.
Light can be shed on another important observation by using the concept of
‘bureaucratic field’ ([2]: 289–290; [55, 63]: 42) to consider two aspects of the relation-
ship between broader social dynamics and penal developments. On the one hand,
conceptualizing state action as a space in which different forces operate according to
different logics makes it possible for punishment to be understood as a social institu-
tion. This makes it easier to connect penal developments with, for example, policies
dealing with the labor market or social services. In the case analyzed here, the
‘austeritarian’ reform of labor market conditions and the cuts to social budgets spur a
series of protests, which punitive institutions try to manage and minimize. Punitive
reforms can therefore be understood to support a political agenda of broader labor
reforms and social cutbacks. On the other hand, linking social and punitive institutions
also facilitates an understanding of the multiple contradictions that constitute the
context in which the penal system operates. Consider the fact that a large and costly
prison population and an unprecedented investment in anti-riot material respectively
coexist with low crime rates and declining social mobilization, at a time when austerity
in public spending is the ideological mantra.
Wacquant [3] calls our attention to some of the effects of neoliberal penalization
which seem to be present in the case of anti-protest developments in Spain in a
particularly clear way. One of them is that penalization is used to stabilize the
consequences of the rise of precarious employment and underpaid wage labor. The
fact that protests organized by those affected by labor reforms and social cutbacks are
discouraged with such persistence is certainly telling.
 Author's personal copy
González-Sánchez I., Maroto-Calatayud M.

Another of the effects signaled by Wacquant is that this penalization neutralizes

populations that pose a potential threat to the established order of things, both through
material and through symbolic means. From the material point of view, penalization
makes it instrumentally difficult to engage in certain protests and specific practices at
demonstrations by illegalizing them. In so doing it prepares the terrain for the use of force
and direct institutional coercion against protestors: the prohibition of capturing or dissem-
inating images of police forces can be seen to offer a clear example of this. Applying a
more symbolic reading, a strong stigmatization of protest movements is being produced in
political discourse and in recent laws to justify these punitive measures, or even to create
confusion as to whether demonstrating in some circumstances is legal or not (i.e.
protestors are anti-establishment, associated with Basque terrorist spheres, a small bunch
of rowdy malcontents, and so on). As a direct product of symbolic violence and the force
of law, a movement which is deeply political is depoliticized ([64]: 220). The serious
consideration of the political claims of protesters is circumvented no matter what they say,
since their acts and attitudes are portrayed as illegal. A fundamentally political problem is
thus transformed into a problem of formalities and rules, moving it from the political
sphere to the sphere of legality and bureaucracy.
In this vein, [3] suggests that resistances to US labor market precarization are
concreted in subsistence through informal economies. In such cases, police pressure
is often increased on those illegalities, specifically through ‘zero tolerance’ policies, to
the end of pushing people into accepting precarious jobs. This ‘broken windows’
approach to regulate phenomena associated with the informal economy (a paradigm
again brought up in the US after Eric Garner was killed in 2014 by the police after
suspicions that he was selling single cigarettes) is discernible in Spain in the recent
proliferation of a wide variety of nuisance regulations at the municipal level. This is
another important element allowing for the creation of new definitions of crimes and
antisocial conducts that are then applied to political practices and dissenters [65].
Lastly, institutional reactions against demonstrators can be read as the State’s attempts
to reaffirm its authority. In a context in which workers are left with fewer social
protections, defending law and order is articulated as the State’s main source of legitima-
tion. This is achieved by the penalization of protests, which transforms a political issue
into an issue of law and order. This relates to the idea of neoliberalism being, above all, a
redefinition of what the legitimate goals of the State are. Neoliberal philosophy ([23]: esp.
147–148) implies a withdrawal from the redistributive functions of the State (i.e. the
bureaucratic field), and a reinforcement of its ‘law and order’ functions. Thus, Wacquant’s
understanding of neoliberalism as a process of state production is exemplified here (and
here is where penalization can clearly no longer be considered a merely repressive
institution). Three out of the four elements that the French author includes in his definition
of neoliberalism are present: labor market deregulation, restrictive transformation of social
policy and the expansion of the penal system.

Resistances and theories of punishment

The explicit resistance dynamics described in this paper are associated with the
Indignados movement and are certainly relevant factors in a theoretical framework that
aspires to explain the development of neoliberal penality. As we have illustrated,
resistance to the implementation of new neoliberal policies in Spain apparently resulted
 Author's personal copy
The penalization of protest under neoliberalism: managing...

in: a harsher penal code, an increase in the role of anti-riot police forces and their
resources, and overall restrictions on freedoms for demonstrating and exercising free
speech. So, is the neoliberalization of society inevitable? Even resistances, it might seem,
end up feeding into the penal system and leaving less space to citizens for resisting. This,
however, is not the argument we mean to forward with this paper. The key issue under
question here is not whether resistances have led to harsher penal measures, but whether
they have led to different penal measures – judging the validity of a point according to its
result would be politically oriented and scientifically mislead. In fact, this penalization
has generated, in turn, new forms of resistance, such as groups reporting police abuses in
demonstrations. At a slower speed, recent court decisions are blocking the process of
penalization and political repression though administrative paths. This also challenges the
idea of a unified implementation of political measures on the part of all penal agents. It
must be remembered that judges are very resistant to changes ([66]: 221), especially if
these changes affect the basis of their work; they have an ‘interest’ which can be
understood if judges are seen as dominant agents in the penal field who defend the
autonomy of their field against meddling from the political field, and act in favor of a
distribution of capitals that benefits them as a group.
Resistance can therefore influence the speed and scope of a penalization process: as
the ‘process’ it is, it is still in motion and is open to changes, and material and symbolic
struggles around it still continue. As a remarkable example, the new mayor of Barce-
lona, Ada Colau, used to be the leader of the anti-eviction (for mortgage defaults)
platform; the city of Madrid itself has been governed, since March 2015, by an
organization composed of different collectives that were involved in the protests of
the previous years, and the anti-austerity inspired Podemos was the third political force
in terms of votes in the last national parliamentary elections in 2015 and 2016.

Conclusions

The main intention of the paper was to explore the extent to which Wacquant’s
approach to penality could be applied to a different context to that which inspired it.
It has been pointed out that the study of demonstrations and police actions may be key
for the revitalization of the study of punishment and society ([67]: 7). To that end, the
topic of resistances, their penalization and the role they play in the unfolding of
neoliberal penality has been addressed.
Social institutions only become meaningful in relation to other institutions, and
therefore it is necessary to include a structural approach to social analysis, in its
methodological sense, that is, a relational approach. Here, along with exposing the
evident facts (that attempts have been made to repress conflicting voices through
government policies) we have observed how placing penality in relation to the labor
market and the system of welfare benefits reveals that it is part of the broader process of
the reconfiguration of the state and its duties ([2]: 4–7). It also highlights the various
social and political uses that the penal system can be put to. These uses are understood
to be developed by concrete people interacting within organizational logics.
This analysis, we must remember, is mostly based on legal texts: it is widely
acknowledged in criminology that passing laws and enforcing them constitute substan-
tially different phenomena. Sometimes laws are barely implemented after they are
 Author's personal copy
González-Sánchez I., Maroto-Calatayud M.

passed, as has been the case, for example, with the obligation for policemen to wear
visible identification numbers. New laws may do little more than legalize practices that
were already being carried out, and the change may not be as big as it seems –though
making an illegal activity legal, and vice versa, is not trivial. The very same notion of
the bureaucratic field advises that we should wait to observe the actual result of
implementing these policies. People from the ‘lower nobility of the state’ can offer
some resistances, like for example judicial secretaries refusing to charge court fees -that
eventually led to their disappearance-, or some sections of the police feeling uncom-
fortable with their repressive role and objecting (which has happened in relation to
evictions). New emergent parties emphasize the limitations of the current Spanish
Constitution, and some of its sections might be amended. The process is still open to
transformations, and they are not predetermined.

References

1. Jiménez Sánchez, M. (2011). La normalización de la protesta: el caso de las manifestaciones en España

(1980–2008). Madrid: CIS.
2. Wacquant, L. (2009). Punishing the poor. The neoliberal government of social insecurity. Durham: Duke
University Press.
3. Wacquant, L. (1999). Prisons of poverty (p. 2009). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
4. Lappi-Seppälä, T. (2011). Explaining imprisonment in Europe. Europena Journal of Criminology, 8(4),
303–328.
5. Cid, J., & Larrauri, E. (2009). Development of crime, social change, mass media, crime policy,
sanctioning practice and their impact on prison population rates. Sistema Penal y Violência, 1(1), 1–21.
6. Aebi, M., Tiago, M., & Burkhardt, C. (2015). SPACE I–Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics:
Prison populations. Survey 2014. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
7. Castel, R. (1995). From manual workers to wage laborers: Transformation of the social question. New
Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers.
8. Rothman, D. (1971). The discovery of the asylum: Social order and disorder in the New Republic.
Boston: Little, Brown.
9. Downes, D., & Hansen, K. (2006). Welfare and punishment in comparative perspective. In S. Armstrong
& L. McAra (Eds.), Perspectives on punishment: The contours of control (pp. 133–154). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
10. Lappi-Seppälä, T. (2008). Trust, welfare, and political culture: Explaining differences in National Penal
Policies. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice: A review of research (volume 37) (pp. 313–387). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
11. Garland, D. (1990). Punishment and modern society: A study in social theory. Chicago: Chicago
University Press.
12. Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (p. 2012). New York: Vintage Books.
13. Fernández, J. M. (2005). La noción de violencia simbólica en la obra de Pierre Bourdieu: una
aproximación crítica. Cuadernos de Trabajo Social, 18, 7–31.
14. Daems, T. (2008). Making sense of penal change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
15. González-Sánchez, I. (2012). La reconfiguración del Estado y del castigo. In I. González-Sánchez (Ed.),
Teoría social, marginalidad urbana y Estado penal: aproximaciones al trabajo de Loïc Wacquant (pp.).
16. Garland, D. (2013). Penality and the penal state. Criminology, 51(3), 475–517.
17. Garland, D. (2001). The culture of control. Crime and social order in contemporary society. Oxford:
Oxford Univeristy Press.
18. Wacquant, L. (2011). Neoliberal penality at work: A response to my Spanish critics. Revista Española de
Sociología, 15, 115–123.
19. Zimring, F., & Hawins, G. (1991). The scale of imprisonment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
20. Abbott, A. (2011). Book review on ‘punishing the poor. American Journal of Sociology, 116(4), 1356–1360.
21. Lacey, N. (2011). Differentiating among penal states. British Journal of Sociology, 61(4), 778–794.
 Author's personal copy
The penalization of protest under neoliberalism: managing...

22. Lacey, N. (2013). Punishment, (neo)liberalism and social democracy. In J. Simon & R. Sparks (Eds.),
The SAGE handbook of punishment and society (pp. 260–279). London: Sage.
23. Harcourt, B. (2011). The illusion of free markets. Punishment and the myth of natural order. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
24. González-Sánchez, I. (2017). For and against the political economy of punishment: Thoughts on
Bourdieu and punishment. In D. Melossi, M. Sozzo, & J. A. Brandariz (Eds.), The political economy
of punishment today: Visions, debates and challenges (pp. 65–86). New York: Routledge.
25. Wacquant, L. (2014). Marginality, ethinicty and penality in the Neo-Liberal City: An analytic cartogra-
phy. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37(10), 1687–1711.
26. Nelken, D. (2010). Denouncing the penal state. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 10(4), 329–338.
27. Measor, L. (2012). ‘Loïc Wacquant, gender and cultures of resistance. In P. Squires & J. Lea (Eds.),
Criminalisation and advanced marginality. critically exploring the work of Loïc Wacquant (pp. 129–
150). Bristol: Policy Press.
28. Wacquant, L. (2000). Body and soul: Notebooks of an apprentice boxer (Vol. 2003). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
29. Fernández, J. M. (2012). Cuerpo, mente y gueto. Una reapropiación creativa de la teoría de la práctica de
Pierre Bourdieu. In I. González Sánchez (Ed.), Teoría social, marginalidad urbana y Estado penal:
aproximaciones al trabajo de Loïc Wacquant (pp. 51–88). Madrid: Dykinson.
30. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Oxford: Polity Press.
31. Bourdieu, P. (1980). The logic of practice (p. 1990). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
32. Goodman, P., Page, J., & Phelps, M. (2017). Breaking the Pendullum. The long struggle over criminal
justice. New York: Oxford University Press.
33. Braithwaite, J. (2003). What’s wrong with the sociology of punishment? Theoretical Criminology, 7(1),
5–28.
34. Ministerio de Interior. (2013). Anuario estadístico. Resource document. http://www.interior.gob.
es/documents/642317/1204854/Anuario_estadistico_2012_okkk.pdf/00ee01c7-3122-496a-a023-
22829653e6c0. Accessed 1 Nov 2015.
35. Della Porta, D., & Diani, M. (1998). Social movements: An introduction (p. 2006). Oxford: Blackwell.
36. Della Porta, D., & Reiter, H. (1998). The policing of protest in western democracies. In D. Della Porta &
H. Reiter (Eds.), Policing protest: The control of mass demonstrations in western democracies.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
37. Faraldo, P. (2014). La despenalización de las faltas: entre la agravación de las penas y el aumento de la
represión administrativa. Indret, 3, 2014.
38. Barkan, S. E. (2006). Criminal prosecution and the legal control of protest. Mobilization, 11(2), 181–194.
39. Feeley, M. (1979). The process is the punishment. Handling cases in a lower criminal court. New York: Sage.
40. Oliver Olmo, P. (2013). ¿Qué es la burorrepresión?. In Oliver Olmo P. (coord.). Burorrepresión. Sanción
administrativa y control social (pp. 11–28). Albacete: Bomarzo.
41. Maroto-Calatayud, M. (2013), Ciudades de excepción: seguridad ciudadana y civismo como
instrumentos de burorrepresión de la protesta. In Oliver Olmo P. (coord.). Burorrepresión. Sanción
administrativa y control social (pp. 29–64). Albacete: Bomarzo.
42. Landa Arambarri, B. (1995). Ley orgánica... una estrategia preventiva de control político. In Muñagorri
Laguia I. (Ed.), Protección de la Seguridad Ciudadana. Oñati: OIISL.
43. El País. (2011). Cómo disolver una sentada. Elpais.com.
44. Jaime-Jiménez, Ó. (1996). Orden público y cambio político en España. Revista Internacional de
Sociología, 15, 143.167.
45. Palacios Cerezales, D. (2003). Confraternizar con la policía. Unpublished working paper.
46. The Guardian. (2015). Journalists take fight against Spanish 'Gag Law' to European court’. Theguardian.com.
47. Benedicto Salmerón, R. A. (2015). Gubernamentalidad policial de subjetividades/identidades en torno al
15M. El tratamiento del enemigo (Catalunya, 2011–2012). Teoría y Crítica de la Psicología, 6, 297–348.
48. Thompson, E. P. (1975). The crime of anonymity. In D. Hay, P. Linebaugh, J. Rule, E. P. Thompson, &
C. Winslow (Eds.), Albion's fatal tree: Crime and society in eighteenth-century England (pp. 255–344).
London: Pantheon Books.
49. El Diario. (2015). Interior compra gas lacrimógeno por 1,3 millones a la familia de un exdiputado del PP,
Eldiario.es.
50. Blay, E. (2013). El control policial de las protestas en España. InDret 4.
51. Comision Legal Sol. (2015). Las verguenzas de Cifuentes: Cuatro años al frente de Delegación de
Gobierno, https://legal15m.wordpress.com
52. O’Malley, P. (2009). Theorizing fines. Punishment and Society, 11(1), 67–83.
53. Davenport, C. (2007). State repression and political order. Annual Review of Political Science, 10, 1–23.
 Author's personal copy
González-Sánchez I., Maroto-Calatayud M.

54. Earl, J. (2006). Introduction: Repression and the social control of protest. Mobilization, 11(2), 129–143.
55. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
56. Lukes, S., & Scull, A. (2013). Introduction to the second edition. In S. Lukes & A. Scull (Eds.),
Durkheim and the law (2nd ed., pp. 1–40). Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
57. Garland, D. (1983). Durkheim’s theory of punishment: A critique. In D. Garland & P. Young (Eds.), The
power to punish. Contemporary penality and social analysis (pp. 37–61). London: Heinemann.
58. Romanos, E. (2011). Epílogo. Retos emergentes, debates recientes y los movimientos sociales en España. In
D. Della Porta & M. Diani (Eds.), Los movimientos sociales (pp. 315–346). Madrid: Complutense and CIS.
59. ABC. (2012). La Delegación del Gobierno ve a ultras de izquierdas y de derechas detrás de ‘Ocupa el
Congreso’. ABC.es.
60. Martín García, Ó. (2013). La burorrepresión del nuevo ciclo de protestas. In Oliver Olmo P. (coord.).
Burorrepresión. Sanción administrativa y control social (pp. 65–93). Albacete: Bomarzo.
61. Calvo García, M. (1995). Políticas de seguridad y transformaciones del Derecho. In I. Muñagorri Laguia
(Ed.), La protección de la seguridad ciudadana (pp. 95–134). Oñati: The Oñati I.I.S.L..
62. Simon, J. (2007). Governing through crime: How the war on crime transformed American democracy
and created a culture of fear. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
63. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1993). From ruling class to the field of power: An interview with Pierre
Bourdieu on La noblesse d’État. Theory, Culture and Society, 10, 19–44.
64. Hirst, P. Q. (1975). Marx and Engels on law, crime and morality. In I. Taylor, P. Walton, & J. Young
(Eds.), Critical criminology (pp. 203–232). London and Boston: Routedge and Kegan Paul.
65. Maroto-Calatayud, M. (2016). Punitive decriminalization? The repression of political dissent through
administrative law and nuisance ordinances in Spain. In Persak N. (dir.). Regulation and Social Control
of Incivilities. London: Routledge.
66. Ruidíaz García, C. (1994). Loes españoles ante la justicia penal: actitudes y expectativas. Revista
Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 67, 219-240.
67. Simon, J., & Sparks, R. (2013). Introduction. Punishment and society: The emergence of an academic
field. In J. Simon & R. Sparks (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of punishment and society (pp. 1–21).
London: Sage.