Interview with Jorge Ollero

ByJusticia Transformadora
  1. In your book, you talk about how society has moved from being more focused on collective wellbeing to being centred on unsupportive individualism. Could you explain how this process has taken place and what factors have contributed to it?
    What I mean is that Spanish society, from the Transition to the present day, has gradually become imbued with the neoliberal paradigm, in which social problems are individualised and attempts are made to solve them through the market — supported by the penal system — instead of understanding that collective needs can only be resolved through approaches based on solidarity. Logically, the move towards a more neoliberal and punitive society is a complex process, in which different trends, responses and contradictions arise. It is not an inevitable destiny, but rather a socio-political option that can be changed.
    In my book, following authors such as Loïc Wacquant, I put forward the thesis that the breakdown of the social-democratic consensus and the arrival of the neoliberal paradigm from the 1970s onwards led to an excessive increase in the use of criminal law as a false solution to the social, economic and political problems caused by neoliberal deregulation itself. Thus, we moved from the paradigm of the Social State, which prioritised solidarity-based solutions to collective problems, to that of the Penal State, based on an excessive hardening of the penal system.
    In “Magical Penalism”, I focus on the evolution of Spanish society over recent decades and show how a spiral of harsher penalties and the securitisation of all discourses has taken place. I examine the specific changes that have been introduced into criminal legislation from 1975 to 2020, highlighting how poverty, immigration and political dissent have been criminalised. I show how, in late-1970s Spain, mass demonstrations called for an end to prisons as tools of social repression, whereas today almost every problem is accompanied by demands to create a new offence or increase penalties.
  2. What is the relationship between this drift and the term you have coined, “magical penalism”?
    What I argue is that this phenomenon of penalising social problems was able to occur, and continues to occur, because there is a psychological and cultural basis that sustains it.
    This punitive populism prevails because we trust in magical penalism, which I define as the irrational belief that punishments produce magical effects capable of solving any problem. This faith in the omnipotence of punishment reinforces a common sense that considers “tough on crime” policies to be effective against any kind of problem.
    Thus, thanks to this “magical-penalist ideology”, a useless war on drugs is imposed, migrant women and those who help them are criminalised, and any form of political dissent is labelled as terrorism. It is also believed that patriarchy can be transformed and a feminist society built through a deeply violent, hierarchical and patriarchal tool such as criminal punishment. In other words, deep down we believe that punishment works to solve complex social problems such as machismo or economic inequality.
  3. What alternatives to this “magical penalism” do you identify?
    I believe there are alternatives at both a practical and a theoretical level. On the one hand, restorative justice is presented as an alternative paradigm focused on restoring the personal and social harm caused by crime through the accountability of the person who caused that harm. In other words, it is a completely different vision from that of the retributive penal system, which is mainly based on inflicting pain on the person who has caused pain, on harming the person who harms. Restorative justice has proven to be possible and effective: it meets victims’ needs for justice and reparation, achieves non-repetition and reintegration of offenders, and makes us a more responsible and reflective society, capable of understanding the social roots of individual harmful acts.
    Alongside the practical application of restorative justice, I believe it is very important to think about theoretical, discursive, media and cultural alternatives. I think the main thing is to imagine different worlds in which violence is not the primary way of addressing harmful and unjust situations, and writing “Magical Penalism” was intended as a contribution in that direction.
  4. Have you worked in restorative justice processes?
    Yes, of course. I have worked as a facilitator in restorative justice processes and I know first-hand the capacity this approach has to heal wounds and transform people. In recent years I have been more dedicated to public management, as head of the Restorative Justice Service of the Government of Navarre, where we were able to promote the first regional law that recognises restorative justice as a right of all victims who request it.
  5. Are you familiar with the tool of transformative justice in the field of companies, entities and organisations?
    I am familiar with it, and I find it very powerful and necessary. In my opinion, I do not consider it incompatible with the paradigm of restorative justice; rather, it contributes a deeper and more holistic vision. In fact, I also advocate for a vision of justice that takes into account the structural conditions that have favoured the harmful situation and, of course, that lays the foundations so that the harm does not happen again in the future. I believe transformative justice is connected to these approaches and, when applied to companies, entities or organisations, it can contribute to creating a more mature, responsible and supportive society. In other words, a society that is less trusting in punishment as the solution to everything and less imbued with faith in magical penalism.

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