Bringing together new research, this book advances current theoretical understandings of punishment and control in society. It provides a critical analysis of institutions, punishment and the law, and explores the delivery of punishment and experience of incarceration in Western societies from the early-nineteenth century.

In the last decade there has been growing international concern about the increasing numbers of women in prison, the effects that imprisonment has on their children, the realisation that gaoled women have different criminal profiles and rehabilitative needs to male prisoners, and the seeming intractability of the associated problems. In response there has been an overarching policy concern in many countries to fashion and co-ordinate gender-specific policies towards female offenders which aim both to slow down the rate of their offending and/or imprisonment, and also to engender flexible programmes which will reduce the time spent in custody and/or away from their young children. The major objective of this book is to describe and analyse contemporary opportunities for, and barriers to, both the reduction of female prison populations and the reduction of the pain of those women who continue to be imprisoned. It assesses the most important recent attempts to reduce both women's imprisonment and the damage it does, identifying and analyzing cross-jurisdiction and gender-specific lessons to be learned, and the unexpected consequences of some of the reform strategies. This book brings together leading scholars and practitioners in the field, providing a critique of the reform initiatives which have taken place, and a much-needed theorization of cross-national policy in this area. It will be essential reading for all with an interest in prisons and prison reform.

This edited collection brings together leading international academics and researchers to provide a comprehensive body of literature that informs the future of prison and wider corrective services training, education, research, policy and practice. This volume addresses a range of 21st century issues faced by modern corrective services including, prison overcrowding, young and ageing offenders, mental health, sexual assault in corrective facilities, trans communities in corrective services and radicalisation of offenders within corrective services. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach and drawing together theoretical and practice debates, the book comprehensively considers current challenges and future trajectories for corrective systems, the people within them and service delivery. This volume will also be a welcomed resource for academics and researchers who have an interest in prisons, corrective services practice and broader criminal justice issues. It will also be of interest to those who want to join corrective services, those who are currently training to become personnel in corrective services and related allied professions, and those who are currently working in the field.

This book offers a unique look into prisons in Iran and the lives of the prisoners and their families. It provides an overview of the history of Iranian prisons, depicts the sub-culture in contemporary Iranian prisons, and highlights the forms that gender discrimination takes behind the prison walls. The book draws on the voices of 90 men and women who have been imprisoned in Iran, interviewed in 2012 and 2017 across various parts of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It presents a different approach to the one proposed by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish because the author argues that Iran never experienced "the age of sobriety in punishment" and "a slackening of the hold on the body". Whilst penal severity in Iran has reduced, its scope has now extended beyond prisoners to their families, regardless of their age and gender. In Iran, penalties still target the body but now also affect the bodies of the entire prisoner's family. It is not just prisoners who suffer from the lack of food, clothes, spaces for sleeping, health services, legal services, safety, and threats of physical violence and abuse but also their families. The book highlights the costs of mothers' incarceration for their children. It argues that as long as punishment remains the dominant discourse of the penal system, the minds and bodies of anyone related to incarcerated offenders will remain under tremendous strain. This unique book explores the nature of these systems in a deeply under-covered nation to expand understandings of prisons in the non-Western world.

This book reports the result of research carried out in a busy London police station on the role and impact of closed-circuit television (CCTV) in the management and surveillance of suspects - the most thorough example of the use of CCTV by the police in the world. It focuses on the use of CCTV in a very different environment to that in which its impact has previously been studied, and draws upon the analysis of CCTV footage, suspects' backgrounds and extensive interviewing of both police officers and suspects. The research is situated in the context of concerns about the human rights implications of the use of CCTV, and challenges criminological and social theory in its conceptualisation of the role of their police, their governance and the use of CCTV. It raises key questions about both the future of policing and the treatment of suspects in custody. A key theme of this book is the need to move away from a narrow focus on the negative, intrusive face of surveillance: as this study demonstrates, CCTV has another 'face' - one that potentially watches and protects. Both 'faces' need to be examined and analysed simultaneously in order to understand the impact and implications of electronic surveillance.

This book offers a unique examination of how violence is situationally induced and reproduced for those inmates living with HIV in a US State prison system. Imprisonment is the only space where Americans have a constitutional right to healthcare but findings from this research suggest that accessing this care and associated welfare benefits requires some degree of violence. This book documents how HIV-positive inmates went about achieving agency through harm to their bodies and social standing to improve their health and wellbeing, in prison and upon re-entry to the community. It focusses on ethnographic research which was carried out in seven penal facilities in New England and comprises of accounts from inmates, prison staff, healthcare providers, ex-offenders, and community social workers. This book speaks to academics interested in prisons, violence, health, and ethnographic research, and to policy makers.

This work asks readers to reconsider punishment contracts in the United States. It illustrates the importance of state accountability and responsibility to those who are punished, while also focusing on the dual importance of desistance and re-entry. Looking across current criminological desistance literature, Stephen C. McGuinn shows the value of empowerment, meaning and, most of all, assimilation. Woven throughout the text, the work also captures the actual experiences of a man returning to society after eleven years in prison. He details his experiences in a daily journal, providing an honest and forthright account of the confusion and struggle of those who come home after lengthy prison stays. Through this account, readers are reminded of the importance of human connection and compassion. As researchers, as scientists, we must provide a map, or a language and narrative, on how to consider punishment in the US. In developing a new way to consider the process of desistance, this book champions the humanity in forgiveness and the compassion of justice.

The profile of prisoners across many Western countries is strikingly similar - 95% male, predominantly undereducated and underemployed, from the most deprived neighbourhoods. This book reflects on how similarly positioned men configure masculinities against global economic shifts that have seen the decimation of traditional, manual-heavy industry and with it the disruption of long-established relations of labour. Drawing on life history interviews and classical ethnography, the book charts a group of men's experiences pre, during and post prison. Tracking the development of masculinities from childhood to adulthood, across impoverished streets, 'failing' schools and inadequate state 'care', the book questions whether this proved better preparation for serving prison time than working in their local, service-dominated, labour markets. It integrates theories of crime, geography, economics and masculinity to take into account structural and global economic shifts as well as individual long-term perspectives in order to provide a broad examination on pathways to prison and post prison.

Current Legal Issues, like its sister volume Current Legal Problems, is based upon an annual colloquium held at University College London. Each year, leading scholars from around the world gather to discuss the relationship between law and another discipline of thought. Each colloquium examines how the external discipline is conceived in legal thought and argument, how the law is pictured in that discipline, and analyses points of controversy in the use, and abuse, of extra-legal arguments within legal theory and practice.
Law and Philosophy, the latest volume in the Current Legal Issues series, contains a broad range of essays by scholars interested in the interactions between law and philosophy. It includes studies examining the themes of the nature of law; and interactions between State, the citizen, and the law.

This book explores the growing understanding and evidence base for the role of trauma in sexual offending. It represents a paradigm shift, in which trauma is becoming an important risk factor to be considered in the treatment of individuals convicted of sexual crime. The authors consider the theoretical and historical explanations and understandings of sexual offending and its relationship with early trauma, paving the way for a volume which considers client's treatment needs through a new, trauma-informed lens. The experiences and challenges of specific groups are also explored, including young people and women. Readable, yet firmly anchored in a sound evidence base, this book is relevant to psychologists, therapists, criminologists, psychiatrists, mental health nurses, social workers, students, and to practitioners and the general public with an interest in learning more about the topic.

This book constitutes the first publication to utilise a range of social science methodologies to illuminate diverse and new aspects of health research in prison settings. Prison contexts often have profound implications for the health of the people who live and work within them. Despite these settings often housing people from extremely disadvantaged and deprived communities, many with multiple and complex health needs, health research is generally neglected within both criminology and medical sociology. Through the fourteen chapters of this book, a range of issues emerge that the authors of each contribution reflect upon. The ethical concerns that emerge as a consequence of undertaking prison health research are not ignored, indeed these lie at the heart of this book and resonate across all the chapters. Foregrounding these issues necessarily forms a significant focus of this introductory chapter. Alongside explicitly considering emerging ethical issues, our contributing authors also have considered diverse aspects of innovation in research methodologies within the context of prison health research. Many of the chapters are innovative through the methodologies that were used, often adapting and utilising research methods rarely used within prison settings. The book brings together chapters from students, scholars, practitioners and service users from a range of disciplines (including medical sociology, medical anthropology, criminology, psychology and public health).

This book closes a gap in decolonizing intersectional and comparative research by addressing issues around the mass incarceration of Indigenous women in the US, Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa New Zealand. This edited collection seeks to add to the criminological discourse by increasing public awareness of the social problem of disproportionate incarceration rates. It illuminates how settler-colonial societies continue to deny many Indigenous peoples the life relatively free from state interference which most citizens enjoy. The authors explore how White-settler supremacy is exercised and preserved through neo-colonial institutions, policies and laws leading to failures in social and criminal justice reform and the impact of women's incarceration on their children, partners, families, and communities. It also explores the tools of activism and resistance that Indigenous peoples use to resist neo-colonial marginalisation tactics to decolonise their lives and communities. With most contributors embedded in their indigenous communities, this collection is written from academic as well as community and experiential perspectives. It will be a comprehensive resource for academics and students of criminology, sociology, Indigenous studies, women and gender studies and related academic disciplines, as well as non-academic audiences: offering new knowledge and insider insights both nationally and internationally.

This book offers a sociological exploration of street children in India and what pulls and pushes them into delinquency, at a time when the government of India is contemplating strengthening its juvenile justice system. It draws on in-depth, qualitative research carried out by an NGO which included unstructured and structured interviews with over 600 children as well as stakeholders. Through the stories of Indian children, this book examines the major factors which together play a crucial role in their engagement in deviant behaviour as they grow up. However, the authors argue that they should not be viewed not as a dangerous threat but as the country's most valuable resource. The authors conclude that a punitive strategy may not be the best option, advocating instead for a focus on restorative justice which has been found to be effective and beneficial alongside other strategies which help strengthen families and enhance parenting skills.

This book examines our contemporary preoccupation with risk and how criminal law and punishment have been transformed as a result of these anxieties. It adopts an historical approach to examine the development of risk control measures used across the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada - particularly since the 1980's - with the rise of the "security sanction". It also takes a criminological and sociological approach to analysing shifts in criminal law and punishment and its implications for contemporary society and criminal justice systems. Law, Insecurity and Risk Control analyses the range and scope of the 'security sanction' and its immobilizing measures, ranging from control over minor incivilities to the most serious crimes. Despite these innovations, though, it argues that our anxieties about risk have become so extensive that the "security sanction" is no longer sufficient to provide social stability and cohesion. As a consequence, people have been attracted to the 'magic' of populism in a revolt against mainstream politics and organisations of government, as with the EU referendum in the UK and the US presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016. While there have been political manoeuvrings to rein back risk and place new controls on it, these have only brought further disillusionment, insecurity and anxiety. This book argues that the "security sanction" is likely to become more deeply embedded in the criminal justice systems of these societies, as new risks to both the well-being of individuals and the nation state are identified.

Born in 1970s North Korea, Lucia Jang grew up in a typical household-her parents worked in the factories and the family scraped by on rationed rice and a small garden. Nightly, she bowed to her photo of Kim Il-Sung. But it was the beginning of a chaotic period with a decade-long famine resulting in more than a million deaths. In this harsh time, Jang married an abusive man who sold their baby. She left him and went home to help her family by illegally crossing the river to China to trade goods. She was caught and imprisoned twice. After giving birth to a second child, which the government ordered to be killed, she escaped with him, fleeing under gunfire across the Chinese border. This stunning demonstration of love and courage reflects the range of experiences many North Korean women have endured.

Breaking the Rules: Women in Prison and Feminist Therapy challenges therapists, public policymakers, voters, and those in the criminal justice system to find treatment options, empowerment strategies, viable resources, community support, and policies that can help women with problems such as drug abuse, domestic violence, poverty, and prostitution rather than perpetually punishing them.Breaking the Rules shows you how our society makes other'of those among us who are most vulnerable, injured, and without resources. It digs under your skin and forces you to look at: the histories of abuse among women who have murdered their partners the impact of race and ethnicity on patterns of mothering and caretaking of children of women prisoners the lack of treatment options for addicted women prisoners how prison reawakens the feelings of powerlessness in women who have suffered childhood physical and sexual abuse helping women inmates develop marketable educational and vocational skills, support systems, and positive perceptions of themselves collaborative strategies that challenge the status quo of programs and support available to female offenders and their families a relational model of treatment that is based on the integration of three theoretical perspectives the strengths and limitations of twelve step programs for womenMapping the problems and offering solutions, Breaking the Rules walks you through treatment strategies and self-confirming experiences--such as feminist therapy, prisoner-led support groups, affirmative prison programming, and art therapy--that help women draw on their strengths, come to terms with their pasts, and meet future challenges head on.

This book presents the formerly-unpublished manuscript by Wheeler and Cline detailing the landmark, comparative prisons study they conducted in the 1960s which examined fifteen Scandinavian prisons and nearly 2000 inmates across four Nordic countries. At the time, it was the largest comparative study of prisons and inmate behavior ever undertaken and despite 15 years of analysis and write-up it was never published but it influenced many other important prison studies that followed. This book engages with the functionalist perspectives that were widespread in the 1960s, and tries to answer some of the classical questions of prison sociology such as how prisoners adapt to imprisonment and the degree to which prisoner adaptations can be attributed to characteristics of prisoners and prisons. It examines the nature and structure of prisons, the effect of that structure on individual prisoners and the other factors that may influence the way that they respond to confinement. It also includes discussion about the prisoners' considerations of justice and fairness and a explanation of the study design and data which was highly unique at the time. The Scandinavian Prison Study brings Wheeler and Cline's pioneering work into the present context with a preface and an introduction which discuss the questions and claims raised in the book still relevant to this day.

This book advances conceptualisations and empirical understanding of the prison cell. It discusses the complexities of this specific carceral space and addresses its significance in relation to the everyday experiences of incarceration. The collected chapters highlight the array of processes and practices that shape carceral life, adding the cell to a rich area of discussion in penal scholarship, criminology, anthropology, sociology and carceral geography. The chapters highlight key aspects such as penal philosophies, power relationships, sensory and emotional engagements with place to highlight the breadth and depth of interdisciplinary perspectives on the prison cell: a contested place of home, labour and leisure. The Prison Cell's empirical attention is global in its consideration, bringing together both contemporary and historical work that focuses upon the cell in the Global North and South including examples from a variety of geographical locations and settings, including police custody, prisons and immigrant detention centres. This book is an important and timely intervention in the growing and topical field of carceral studies. It presents the only standalone collection of essays with a sole focus on the space of the cell.

Essays examining how punishment operated in England, from c.600 to the Norman Conquest. Anglo-Saxon authorities often punished lawbreakers with harsh corporal penalties, such as execution, mutilation and imprisonment. Despite their severity, however, these penalties were not arbitrary exercises of power. Rather, theywere informed by nuanced philosophies of punishment which sought to resolve conflict, keep the peace and enforce Christian morality. The ten essays in this volume engage legal, literary, historical, and archaeological evidence to investigate the role of punishment in Anglo-Saxon society. Three dominant themes emerge in the collection. First is the shift from a culture of retributive feud to a system of top-down punishment, in which penalties were imposed by an authority figure responsible for keeping the peace. Second is the use of spectacular punishment to enhance royal standing, as Anglo-Saxon kings sought to centralize and legitimize their power. Third is the intersectionof secular punishment and penitential practice, as Christian authorities tempered penalties for material crime with concern for the souls of the condemned. Together, these studies demonstrate that in Anglo-Saxon England, capital and corporal punishments were considered necessary, legitimate, and righteous methods of social control. Jay Paul Gates is Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in The City University of New York; Nicole Marafioti is Assistant Professor of History and co-director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Contributors: Valerie Allen, Jo Buckberry, Daniela Fruscione, Jay Paul Gates, Stefan Jurasinski, Nicole Marafioti, Daniel O'Gorman, Lisi Oliver, Andrew Rabin, Daniel Thomas.

This book examines the forms and practices of Irish confinement from the 19th century to present-day to explore the social and political failings of 20th and 21st century postcolonial Ireland. Building on an interdisciplinary conference held in the Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast, the methodological approaches adopted across this book range from the historical and archival to the sociological, political, and literary. This edited collection touches on topics such as industrial schools, Magdalen laundries, struggles and resistance in prisons both North and South, Direct Provision, and the ways in which prison experiences have been represented in literature, cinema, and the arts. It sketches out an uncomfortable picture of the techniques for policing bodies deployed in Ireland for over a century. This innovative study seeks to establish a link between Ireland's inhumane treatment of women and children, of prisoners, and of asylum seekers today, and to expose and pinpoint modes of resistance to these situations.

This edited volume presents research about life in prison for women, discussing both incarcerated women and those working in prisons. It addresses women's paths through the criminal justice system from sentencing through post-incarceration and reintegration into society, highlighting the differences in women's experience of prison compared to their male counterparts and noting both the positive and negative changes implemented for women behind bars. Covering research on stigma, pop culture, motherhood, sexuality and gender, access to healthcare, vocational training, and educational opportunities, this text takes both a local and international view. Women and Prison is a comprehensive volume suitable for criminal justice researchers, mental health professionals, students of criminology, women's studies, sociology and those seeking a career in corrections.

This book illustrates the importance of conflicting narratives in understanding and dealing with crime, based on a variety of cutting-edge research. Offenders tell stories about crime and punishment, as do policemen, judges and defence lawyers, but so do politicians and the media. Each tells them very differently and only some stories are believed, while others are rejected as implausible leading to conflict. This book explores how these conflicts are carried out and what relationships exist between (often unquestioned) master narratives and (sometimes loud, sometimes silent) counter-narratives? These are questions of central importance for criminology which have thus far received little attention. This edited collection is international and interdisciplinary in scope, providing empirical insights from such diverse contexts as (social) media, newspapers, comics, police interrogations, social and criminal justice settings, and museum exhibitions. By including contributions from a wide spectrum of academic disciplines and using different methodological approaches, it is of particular interest to students and researchers in criminology and sociology, as well as to scholars of socio-legal studies.

Winner of the 2014 Outstanding Book Award presented by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Over 2% of U.S.children under the age of 18-more than 1,700,000 children-have a parent in prison. These children experience very real disadvantages when compared to their peers: they tend to experience lower levels of educational success, social exclusion, and even a higher likelihood of their own future incarceration. Meanwhile, their new caregivers have to adjust to their new responsibilities as their lives change overnight, and the incarcerated parents are cut off from their children's development. Parental Incarceration and the Family brings a family perspective to our understanding of what it means to have so many of our nation's parents in prison. Drawing from the field's most recent research and the author's own fieldwork, Joyce Arditti offers an in-depth look at how incarceration affects entire families: offender parents, children, and care-givers. Through the use of exemplars, anecdotes, and reflections, Joyce Arditti puts a human face on the mass of humanity behind bars, as well as those family members who are affected by a parent's imprisonment. In focusing on offenders as parents, a radically different social policy agenda emerges-one that calls for real reform and that responds to the collective vulnerabilities of the incarcerated and their kin.

This book examines the extraordinary nature of the power of preventive detention, which permits executive dispensation of the personal liberty of an individual on the mere apprehension that, if free and unfettered, he may commit acts prejudicial to national security or public order. In light of the extraordinary scope of this power, it, therefore, contends that the scope of the power should be confined to genuine emergencies threatening the life of the nation. Against the above background, this book sheds light on the fact that Article 149 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia empowers the Parliament to enact preventive detention laws authorizing the executive branch of government to preventively detain individuals without the precondition of an emergency. Furthermore, the Constitution does not stipulate adequate safeguards for mitigating the harshness of preventive detention laws. This book makes it manifestly evident that the weaknesses of the constitutional provisions concerning preventive detention have enabled succeeding generations of executives in Malaysia to not only enact a series of preventive detention statues for arrogating to themselves wide powers concerning preventive detention but also to rely on them for arbitrarily detaining their political adversaries. Consequently, on the basis of this analysis, this book puts forward concrete recommendations for insertion in the Constitution detailed norms providing for legal limits on the wide power of the executive concerning preventive detention. The insertion of such norms would ensure the maintenance of a delicate balance between protecting national interests and, simultaneously, observing respect for an individual's right to protection from arbitrary deprivation of liberty.This book is useful for academics and students of comparative constitutional law, human rights and Asian law. The extensive law reform analysis undertaken in this book also greatly benefits the policy makers in Malaysia and the policy makers of constitutional polities facing similar problems with the issue of circumscribing the scope of the powers concerning preventive detention.