The well‐known gap between law on the books and law in action often casts doubt on the significance of changes to law on the books. For example, the rise and fall of penal technologies have long been considered significant indicators of penal change in socio‐historical analyses of punishment. Recent research, however, has challenged the significance of apparently large‐scale penal change of this kind. This article clarifies the significance of penal technologies' rise and fall by offering an alternative account of formal penal change, introducing the analytical concept of “legal templates,” structural models of legal activity (e.g., punishment) available for authorization and replication across multiple jurisdictions. Analyzing punishment's templates explains how new penal technologies can be important harbingers of change, even when they fail to revolutionize penal practice and are not caused by a widespread ideological shift. This article locates the significance of punishment's legal templates in their constitutive power—their ability, over the long term, to shape cognitive‐cultural expectations about what punishment is or should be. This power appears only when the template is widely adopted by a plurality of jurisdictions, thereby becoming institutionalized. Ultimately, these institutionalized templates define the scope of future punishment.

中文翻译：

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惩罚的法律模板：形式上的刑罚变更理论

书籍法律与行动法律之间众所周知的鸿沟，常常使人怀疑更改书籍法律的重要性。例如，刑法技术的兴衰长期以来一直被视为刑罚社会历史分析中刑法变化的重要指标。但是，最近的研究挑战了这种大规模的刑事变革的重要性。本文通过提供替代形式的正式刑法变更说明了“刑法技术兴衰”的重要性，介绍了“法律模板”的分析概念，可在多个司法管辖区进行授权和复制的法律活动（例如，惩罚）的结构模型。分析惩罚的模板可以解释新的刑法技术如何成为变革的重要预兆，即使他们未能彻底改变刑法实践，也不是由广泛的意识形态转变引起的。本文在刑罚法律模板中找到其意义构成能力-从长远来看，他们有能力塑造关于什么是惩罚或应该惩罚的认知文化期望。仅当模板被多个司法管辖区广泛采用并由此制度化时，这种权力才会显现。最终，这些制度化的模板定义了未来惩罚的范围。