The law that could be: poverty, power, and radical legal imagination. Investigating the indirect criminalisation of poverty in Western legal systems and the possibilities for law as a space of transformative justice

Abstract

The indirect criminalisation of poverty represents a structural injustice in Western legal systems. While poverty is not formally criminalised, economically marginalized populations are consistently subjected to punitive treatment through administrative regulation, welfare conditionality, and spatial control. Legal systems, often viewed as neutral or rights-based, instead function as instruments of exclusion shaped by neoliberal economic logics and dominant moralities. This thesis builds on Sara S. Greene’s theory of legal immobility and draws from critical legal studies, political economy, and human rights theory to interrogate how law contributes to the marginalization of the poor. Through a comparative case study of Spain, France, and the United Kingdom, it examines how diverse legal regimes converge in their punitive governance of poverty. Beyond critique, this investigation contends that confronting inequality requires a radical rethinking of law itself. It develops the concept of radical legal imagination to argue that law must be reclaimed as a space of collective authorship, capable of embodying justice, dignity, and solidarity. By connecting critical legal analysis with imaginative reconstruction, the thesis challenges the normative foundations of legal systems and opens space for alternative, emancipatory legal futures.