This book offers the first ethnographic account of prison managers in England. It explores how globalised changes, in particular managerialism, have intersected with local occupational cultures, positioning managers as micro-agents in the relationship between the global and local that characterises late modernity. The Working Lives of Prison Managers addresses key aspects of prison management, including how individuals become prison managers, their engagement with elements of traditional occupational culture, and the impact of the 'age of austerity'. It offers a particular focus on performance monitoring mechanisms such as indicators, audits and inspections, and how these intersect with local culture and individual identity. The book also examines important aspects of individual agency, including values, discretion, resistance and the use of power. It also reveals the 'hidden injuries' of contemporary prison managerialism, especially the distinctive effects experienced by women and members of minority ethnic groups.

This book is the sequel to "Deaths in Custody: International comparisons," also published by Whiting and Birch. It sets out to identify examples of progress and good practice. Contributions by leading figures in the field look at issues of definition, vulnerability and risk, and at programmes aimed at the reduction of custodial suicide rates from many countries.

Russell tests the U.S. Supreme Court's assumption that the procedure used to select jurors who impose the death penalty does not inject racial bias into the jury. In Georgia, those who supported the death penalty and were placed on juries were more likely to sentence black defendants to death. Further, those who supported the death penalty tend to hold attitudes that are linked to racial bias and act as surrogate measures for racial bias. He also finds no support in his analysis for the results of other research that indicate that death penalty jurors are conviction prone. Although earlier empirical evidence has suggested a consistent pattern of race-related differential sentencing, Russell's study is the first to demonstrate that the death qualification tends to eliminate moderate attitudes and concentrate racial bias in death penalty juries. "The Death Penalty and Racial Bias" suggests a clear direction for future policy research into the neutrality of death-qualified juries.

The final volume of Jeffrey Archer's prison diaries covers the period of his transfer from Wayland to his eventual release on parole in July 2003. It includes a shocking account of the traumatic time he spent in the notorious Lincoln jail and the events that led to his incarceration there - it also throws light on a system that is close to breaking point. Told with humour, compassion and honesty, it closes with a thought-provoking manifesto that should be applauded by the Establishment and prison population alike.

In-cell television is now a permanent feature of prisons in England and Wales, and a key part of the experience of modern incarceration. This sociological exploration of prisoners' use of television offers an engaging and thought provoking insight into the domestic and everyday lives of people in prison - with television close at hand. Victoria Knight explores how television contributes to imprisonment by normalising the prison cell. In doing so it legitimates this space to hold prisoners for long periods of time, typically without structured activity. As a consequence, television's place in the modern prison has also come to represent an unanticipated resource in the package of care for prisoners. This book uncovers the complex and rich emotive responses to prison life. Dimensions of boredom, anger, frustration, pleasure and happiness appear through the rich narratives of both prisoners and staff, indicating the ways institutions and individuals deal with their emotions. It also offers an insight into the unfolding future of the digital world in prisons and begins to consider how the prisoner can benefit from engagement with digital technologies. It will be of great interest to practitioners and scholars of prisons and penology, as well as those interested in the impact of television on society.

Commonsense Choices from Uncommon Voices: Rethinking America's Correctional Policies brings together the experiences of men who served time in prison with contemporary research on correctional policy. This work combines a voyeuristic desire to observe "evil" and the consequences of the system of punishment, with detached consideration of what those stories can tell us about who we are as a nation and how we treat those who have betrayed the social trust. The authors simultaneously examine first-person accounts of inmate experiences with the correctional system and what actually, works, in operation, to promote the rehabilitative and restorative models of justice so many of our policymakers espouse. Each chapter opens with a vignette, a recollection of an event or series of events, about an inmate's experience during the various phases of correctional processing. These first-hand accounts have been collected from men who served time in prison. These men's stories are examined in their own right, then extrapolated to a broader analysis of the underlying social and policy issues to which that vignette speaks. All chapters follow the same structure: (a) opening vignette about a former inmate; (b) analysis, which includes (i) identification of the underlying issue; (ii) reflection; and (iii) extrapolation to a larger policy issue; and (c) recommendations from the field for enacting practice and crafting policy more responsive to the identified issue.

In a liberal democracy, theory suggests that the political order and character of a civil society are closely connected: the political order allows for a dynamic and pluralistic civil society, and people's civic participation encourages support for the political order. In examining the role of punishment in the U.S. and the U.K., however, Jonathan Jacobs maintains that the current state of incarceration is antithetical to the principles of a liberal democracy and betrays an abandonment of that project's essential values. The existing system imposes harsh injustices on incarcerated people: it subjects them to inhumane prison conditions, creates numerous obstacles that block their reentry into society upon release, and erodes their capacity to participate in civic life and exercise individual moral agency. And in recent decades, the number of its people that the U.S. has incarcerated has grown dramatically. Jacobs engages with substantial philosophical literature to argue that necessary and significant reforms to the U.S. and U.K. criminal justice systems demand a serious recommitment to the values and principles of a liberal democracy. Topics include the justification and aims of punishment, the role of criminal justice within theories of a just society, and empirical considerations regarding long-term incarceration and its impact. By comprehensively exploring the relationship between criminal justice and justice, he highlights distinctive elements of criminal justice as the basis for a retributivist conception of punishment that highlights desert and proportionality. Jacobs defends retributivism against familiar accusations that it approves vindictiveness and inevitably harms offenders, and shows how consequentialist approaches are seriously flawed. Drawing equally from both philosophy and criminology, Jacobs argues for a renewed dedication to the values and principles of a liberal democracy as critical to the possibility of criminal justice being truly just.

This book, the second of two volumes edited by Kemshall and McCartan, focuses on responses to sexual offending, and how risk is used by policy makers, stakeholders, academics and practitioners to both construct and respond to unknown and known sex offenders within the contexts of criminal justice, health and social policy. The chapters provide an oversight of contemporary policies, practices and debates within the area to help both professionals and researchers. The collection focuses on emerging areas (crime linkage, predictive policing, sexual offending across borders, desistence, and public health approaches), as well as more traditional topics (multi-agency working, risk assessment, sex offender policies, and treatment). The authors examine how professionals can use multi-agency approaches to prevent sexual violence, and assessing the impact of desistance on framing sex offender management. A bold and engaging volume, this edited collection will be of great importance to scholars and practitioners working reframing traditional approaches to sex offender management in a contemporary fashion.

At the end of the eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham devised a scheme for a prison that he called the panopticon. It soon became an obsession. For twenty years he tried to build it; in the end he failed, but the story of his attempt offers fascinating insights into both Bentham's complex character and the ideas of the period. Basing her analysis on hitherto unexamined manuscripts, Janet Semple chronicles Bentham's dealings with the politicians as he tried to put his plans into practice. She assesses the panopticon in the context of penal philosophy and eighteenth-century punishment and discusses it as an instrument of the modern technology of subjection as revealed and analysed by Foucault. Her entertainingly written study is full of drama: at times it is hilariously funny, at others it approaches tragedy. It illuminates a subject of immense historical importance and which is particularly relevant to modern controversies about penal policy.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence. This book is the first academic study of the post-mortem practice of gibbeting ('hanging in chains'), since the nineteenth century. Gibbeting involved placing the executed body of a malefactor in an iron cage and suspending it from a tall post. A body might remain in the gibbet for many decades, while it gradually fell to pieces. Hanging in chains was a very different sort of post-mortem punishment from anatomical dissection, although the two were equal alternatives in the eyes of the law. Where dissection obliterated and de-individualised the body, hanging in chains made it monumental and rooted it in the landscape, adding to personal notoriety. Focusing particularly on the period 1752-1832, this book provides a summary of the historical evidence, the factual history of gibbetting which explores the locations of gibbets, the material technologies involved in hanging in chains, and the actual process from erection to eventual collapse. It also considers the meanings, effects and legacy of this gruesome practice.

This book examines the increasing retention and use of previous criminal record information, within and beyond the criminal justice system. There remains a misconception that once an offender has served the penalty for an offence, his or her dealings with the law and legal system in relation to that offence is at an end. This book demonstrates that in fact the criminal record lingers and permeates facets of the person's life far beyond the de jure sentence. Criminal records are relied upon by key decision makers at all stages of the formal criminal process, from the police to the judiciary. Convictions can affect areas of policing, bail, trial procedure and sentencing, which the author discusses. Furthermore, with the increasing intensifying of surveillance techniques in the interests of security, ex-offenders are monitored more closely post release and these provisions are explored here. Even beyond the formal criminal justice system, individuals can continue to experience many collateral consequences of a conviction whereby access to employment, travel and licenses (among other areas of social activity) can be limited as a consequence of disclosure requirements. Overall, this book examines the perpetual nature of criminal convictions through the evolution of criminal record use, focussing on the Irish perspective, and also considers the impact from a broader international perspective.

This book offers Walters's latest evolution of criminal lifestyle theory. It introduces the concept of criminal thought content to illustrate how the potential interplay between what offenders think and their thought processes can greatly aid our understanding of both crime and criminals. In this new study on criminal behaviour, Walters calls for criminological theory to be placed within a broader scientific context, and provides us with several key models which embrace constructs from numerous important theories including: the general theory of crime, social cognitive and social learning theories, general strain theory, psychopathic personality theories of crime, and labelling theory. Another unique aspect of this work is that it places lifestyle theory within a larger scientific framework, namely, nonlinear dynamical systems theory or chaos. Seven principles from chaos theory are used to explain relationships and processes central to lifestyle theory and Walters uses this to draw conclusions on what affects criminal decision-making and desistance from crime. Highly original and innovative in scope, this book will be useful to practitioners and scholars of criminal justice alike, with chapters focussed on decision-making, assessment, and intervention.

Winner of the 2014 Division of Women and Crime Distinguished Scholar Award presented by the American Society of Criminology Finalist for the 2013 C. Wright Mills Book Award presented by the Society for the Study of Social Problems Compelling interviews uncover why tough drug policies disproportionately impact women in the American prison system Since the 1980s, when the War on Drugs kicked into high gear and prison populations soared, the increase in women's rate of incarceration has steadily outpaced that of men. As a result, women's prisons in the US have suffered perhaps the most drastically from the overcrowding and recurrent budget crises that have plagued the penal system since harsher drugs laws came into effect. In Breaking Women, Jill A. McCorkel draws upon four years of on-the-ground research in a major US women's prison to uncover why tougher drug policies have so greatly affected those incarcerated there, and how the very nature of punishment in women's detention centers has been deeply altered as a result. Through compelling interviews with prisoners and state personnel, McCorkel reveals that popular so-called "habilitation" drug treatment programs force women to accept a view of themselves as inherently damaged, aberrant addicts in order to secure an earlier release. These programs were created as a way to enact stricter punishments on female drug offenders while remaining sensitive to their perceived feminine needs for treatment, yet they instead work to enforce stereotypes of deviancy that ultimately humiliate and degrade the women. The prisoners are left feeling lost and alienated in the end, and many never truly address their addiction as the programs' organizers may have hoped. A fascinating and yet sobering study, Breaking Women foregrounds the gendered and racialized assumptions behind tough-on-crime policies while offering a vivid account of how the contemporary penal system impacts individual lives.

During the 20th century, only six women were legally executed by the State of New York at Sing Sing Prison. In each case, the condemned faced a process of demonization and public humiliation that was orchestrated by a powerful and unforgiving media. When compared to the media treatment of men who went to the electric chair for similar offenses, the press coverage of female killers was ferocious and unrelenting. "Granite woman," "black-eyed Borgia," "roadhouse tramp," "sex-mad," and "lousy prostitute" are just some of the terms used by newspapers to describe these women. Unlike their male counterparts, females endured a campaign of expulsion and disgrace before they were put to death. Not since the 1950s has New York put another woman to death. Gado chronicles the crimes, the times, and the media attention surrounding these cases. The tales of these death row women shed light on the death penalty as it applies to women and the role of the media in both the trials and executions of these convicts. In these cases, the press affected the prosecutions, the judgements, and the decisions of authorities along the way. Contemporary headlines of the era are revealing in their blatant bias and leave little doubt of their purpose. Using family letters, prison correspondence, photographs, court transcripts, and last- minute pleas for mercy, Gado paints a fuller picture of these cases and the times.

This book analyses the mixed courts of professional and lay judges in the Japanese criminal justice system. It takes a particular focus on the highly public start of the mixed court, the saiban-in system, and the jury system between 1928-1943. This was the first time Japanese citizens participated as decision makers in criminal law. The book assesses reasons for the jury system's failure, and its suspension in 1943, as well as the renewed interest in popular involvement in criminal justice at the end of the twentieth century. Popular Participation in Japanese Criminal Justice proceeds by explaining the process by which lay participation in criminal trials left the periphery to become an important national matter at the turn of the century. It shows that rather than an Anglo-American jury model, outline recommendations made by the Japanese Judicial Reform Council were for a mixed court of judges and laypersons to try serious cases. Concerns about the lay judge/saiban-in system are raised, as well as explanations for why it is flourishing in contemporary society despite the failure of the jury system during the period 1928-1943. The book presents the wider significance of Japanese mixed courts in Asia and beyond, and in doing so will be of great interests to scholars of socio-legal studies, criminology and criminal justice.

In 1987, the United States Supreme Court decided a case that could have ended the death penalty in the United States. Imprisoned by the Past: Warren McCleskey and the American Death Penalty examines the long history of the American death penalty and its connection to the case of Warren McCleskey, revealing how that case marked a turning point for the history of the death penalty. In this book, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier explores one of the most important Supreme Court cases in history, a case that raised important questions about race and punishment, and ultimately changed the way we understand the death penalty today. McCleskey's case resulted in one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in U.S. history, where the Court confronted evidence of racial discrimination in the administration of capital punishment. The case currently marks the last time that the Supreme Court had a realistic chance of completely striking down capital punishment. As such, the case also marked a turning point in the death penalty debate in the country. Going back nearly four centuries, this book connects McCleskey's life and crime to the issues that have haunted the American death penalty debate since the first executions by early settlers through the modern twenty-first century death penalty. Imprisoned by the Past ties together three unique American stories. First, the book considers the changing American death penalty across centuries where drastic changes have occurred in the last fifty years. Second, the book discusses the role that race played in that history. And third, the book tells the story of Warren McCleskey and how his life and legal case brought together the other two narratives.

This insightful volume offers a radical reassessment of the infamous "Gulag Archipelago" by exploring the history of Vorkuta, an arctic coal-mining outpost originally established in the 1930s as a prison camp complex. Author Alan Barenberg's eye-opening study reveals Vorkuta as an active urban center with a substantial nonprisoner population where the borders separating camp and city were contested and permeable, enabling prisoners to establish social connections that would eventually aid them in their transitions to civilian life. With this book, Barenberg makes an important historical contribution to our understanding of forced labor in the Soviet Union and its enduring legacy.

The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Ethnography provides an expansive overview of the challenges presented by qualitative, and particularly ethnographic, enquiry. The chapters reflect upon the means by which ethnographers aim to gain understanding, make sense of what they learn and the way they represent their finished work. The Handbook offers urgent insights relevant to current trends in the growth of imprisonment worldwide. In an era of mass incarceration, human-centric ethnography provides an important counter to quantitative analysis and the audit culture on which prisons are frequently judged. The Handbook is divided into four parts. Part I ('About Prison Ethnography') assesses methodological, theoretical and pragmatic issues related to the use of ethnographic and qualitative enquiry in prisons. Part II ('Through Prison Ethnography') considers the significance of ethnographic insights in terms of wider social or political concerns. Part III ('Of Prison Ethnography') analyses different aspects of the roles ethnographers take and how they negotiate their research settings. Part IV ('For Prison Ethnography') includes contributions that convincingly extend the value of prison ethnography beyond the prison itself. Bringing together contributions by some of the world's leading scholars in criminology and prison studies, this authoritative volume maps out new directions for future research. It will be an indispensable resource for practitioners, students, academics and researchers who use qualitative social research methods to further their understanding of prisons.

This book, the first of two volumes edited by McCartan and Kemshall, focusses on perceptions of sexual offenders, and how risk is used by policy makers, stakeholders, academics and practitioners to both construct and respond to unknown and known sex offenders within the contexts of criminal justice, health and social policy. The chapters provide an oversight of contemporary policies, practices and debates within the area to help both professionals and researchers. The collection focuses on emerging areas (public health approaches, prevention, public perceptions of sexual abuse, and social constructionism), as well as more traditional topics (media, preventative and exceptional sentencing, resilience, and work force development). The authors examine public and professional engagement on sex offender management, and the changing socio-political landscape of sexual offender management. A bold and engaging volume, this edited collection will be of great importance to scholars and practitioners interested in perceptions of sexual offending.

This is the first comprehensive and up-to-date study of how inmates and their wives cope with incarceration and to what extent conjugal visit programs help their marriages. The findings of a family support program in upper New York State compares different groups and has implications for social welfare and corrections professionals. The authors review the historical background of family support programs for prison inmates, the related literature, and raise questions about the kinds of policies, programs, and services that affect inmates and their families. They point to the effects of clinical intervention on different ethnic groups and make recommendations for the future to help the couples better cope.

Offering perspectives from a range of experts, both academic and nonacademic, this reference book examines the development of prisons in the United States and addresses the principal contemporary issues and controversies of our prisons and prison systems. Prisons were initially created as a means of reforming offenders, but over time, the objective of rehabilitation gave way to a strategy of mass imprisonment-a system that has resulted in correctional facilities dealing with serious problems such as overcrowding, prison gangs, pervasive violence, and a significant incidence of mental illness among inmates. Prisons in the United States: A Reference Handbook examines the history of corrections in America, detailing how well-intentioned policies intended to "get tough on crime" sanctioned the dismantling of parole systems and resulted in laws that imposed mandatory minimum sentences. These changes contributed to the United States now having the biggest incarcerated population worldwide and the highest rate of incarceration. The book offers an accessible history of the development of the prison system in the United States and analyzes the various problems and controversies associated with prisons in the present day. The coverage includes key related issues, including those of race and gender, and enables readers to understand how past developments continue to affect public and official perceptions of the prison experience-for example, how the practice of keeping inmates in solitary confinement for lengthy periods has been reinvented and represents a return to a historically discredited practice. Accounts of former inmates and of correctional officers are integrated into the text, adding context and offering rarely heard perspectives on difficult issues affecting prisons. Presents a comprehensive yet succinct history of the development of men's and women's prisons in the United States Offers a range of author perspectives that identify and explore the principal issues associated with prisons and imprisonment Documents the shift from an intent to reform inmates in prisons to retribution and an attempt to remove all criminals from society, using prisons for "warehousing" of undesired elements Provides a complete reference guide for the understanding of prisons and imprisonment as a punishment

Here is Gregory, who spent two years in solitary confinement before he was convicted of any crime; here is Ethiop, who was imprisoned for homicide despite the absence of a murder weapon, a motive, or witnesses to his alleged crime; and here is Mazar, a convicted murderer, who writes poetry, speaks three languages fluently, and has a genius I.Q. Their "War Stories," along with the stories of 13 other students in a Western Civilization class, are chronicled here by the teacher who earned their respect and trust while tracing the paths that brought them together behind the walls of a maximum security prison.

Americans are vitally concerned about crime. Politicians call for tougher sentences and larger prisons as the headlines decry the sad state of America's inner cities. Yet, amid this din of strident voices, we seldom hear the testimony of those who can speak most authoritatively about the roots of crime and the efficacy of the criminal justice system. We seldom hear from the convicts and inmates themselves. In this poignant and provocative narrative, a history teacher introduces us to fifteen men in a maximum security prison. The stories told by these prisoners confound the easy categories we employ to judge guilt and innocence: some of the men arouse our indignation, while others compel us to question the workings of the criminal justice system. Some point to the ignorance and prejudice that often lie behind the desire to lock 'em up and throw away the key. Throughout, readers will be confronted with facts from the lives of men who are--sometimes simultaneously--perpetrators and victims of the criminal culture we deplore.

These essays treat the legal, financial, ethical, political, institutional, and social dimensions of the most important element of America's correctional crisis: prison overcrowding. The collection may become a standard work in the field, especially for those who question the feasibility and wisdom of building more prisons. The need for rational policy-making that links prison sentences with available prison space comes through clearly and forcefully. Chapters by well-known authorities describe the extent of overcrowding in prisons and jails, review current law regarding the constituitonality of overcrowded prison facilities, and summarize research on causes and consequences. . . . Highly recommended. Choice Because of the recent explosion in the American prison population, which has risen more than 40 percent in just six years, overcrowding has reached crisis proportions and conditions within prisons continue to deteriorate. This book takes a close look at the policy implications of that crisis, addressing constitutional issues, economic and political questions, and a wide range of possible long- and short-term solutions. Written by some of the most experienced academics and consultants now working the field, it provides a theoretical orientation and up-to-date factual background for each of the issues and practical policy alternatives that are studied.