Prison Life Writing is the first full-length study of one of the most controversial genres in American literature. By exploring the complicated relationship between life writing and institutional power, this book reveals the overlooked aesthetic innovations of incarcerated people and the surprising literary roots of the U.S. prison system. Simon Rolston observes that the autobiographical work of incarcerated people is based on a conversion narrative, a story arc that underpins the concept of prison rehabilitation and that sometimes serves the interests of the prison system, rather than those on the inside. Yet many imprisoned people rework the conversion narrative the way they repurpose other objects in prison. Like a radio motor retooled into a tattoo gun, the conversion narrative has been redefined by some authors for subversive purposes, including questioning the ostensible emancipatory role of prison writing, critiquing white supremacy, and broadly reimagining autobiographical discourse. An interdisciplinary work that brings life writing scholarship into conversation with prison studies and law and literature studies, Prison Life Writing theorizes how life writing works in prison, explains literature's complicated entanglements with institutional power, and demonstrates the political and aesthetic innovations of one of America's most fascinating literary genres.

Recalibrating Juvenile Detention chronicles the lessons learned from the 2007 to 2015 landmark US District Court-ordered reform of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) in Illinois, following years of litigation by the ACLU about egregious and unconstitutional conditions of confinement. In addition to explaining the implications of the Court's actions, the book includes an analysis of a major evaluation research report by the University of Chicago Crime Lab and explains for scholars, practitioners, administrators, policymakers, and advocates how and why this particular reform of conditions achieved successful outcomes when others failed. Maintaining that the Chicago Crime Lab findings are the "gold standard" evidence-based research (EBR) in pretrial detention, Roush holds that the observed "firsts" for juvenile detention may perhaps have the power to transform all custody practices. He shows that the findings validate a new model of institutional reform based on cognitive-behavioral programming (CBT), reveal statistically significant reductions in in-custody violence and recidivism, and demonstrate that at least one variation of short-term secure custody can influence positively certain life outcomes for Chicago's highest-risk and most disadvantaged youth. With the Quarterly Journal of Economics imprimatur and endorsement by the President's Council of Economic Advisors, the book is a reverse engineering of these once-in-a-lifetime events (recidivism reduction and EBR in pretrial detention) that explains the important and transformative implications for the future of juvenile justice practice. The book is essential reading for graduate students in juvenile justice, criminology, and corrections, as well as practitioners, judges, and policymakers.

Long sentenced young people are a small but significant part of the juvenile prison population. The current approach to young people convicted of serious crime speaks to wider issues in criminal and social justice, including the idealisation of (some) childhoods, processes of racialisation and identity and the sociology of the body. Analysing the relationships between biography, trauma and habitus reveals the ways in which class, racial and legal status are experienced and resisted. Young Men's Experiences of Long-Term Imprisonment: Living Life considers the need for the reinvigoration of prison ethnography and calls for a phenomenological approach to understanding youth crime and punishment. An insightful ethnographic study on imprisoned 15- to 17-year-olds in England, this volume examines how young people experience long-term imprisonment, manage their time and imagine and shape their futures. Drawing on observations, interviews and correspondence, Tynan situates long-term imprisonment of young men within the wider social context of criminal and social justice; and analyses constructs and practices that locate responsibility for crime with individuals and communities. Young Men's Experiences of Long-Term Imprisonment: Living Life will be of interest to students and researchers interested in the sociology of prisons, punishment and youth justice and qualitative research methodology.

This book offers a sustained study of one feature of the prison officer's job: the threat and use of force, which the author calls 'doing' coercion. Adopting an interactionist, micro-sociological perspective, the author presents new research based on almost two years of participant observation within an Italian custodial complex hosting both a prison and a forensic psychiatric hospital. Based on observation of emergency squad interventions during so-called 'critical events', together with visual methods and interviews with staff, 'Doing' Coercion in Male Custodial Settings constitutes an ethnographic exploration of both the organisation and the implicit and explicit practices of threatening and/or 'doing' coercion. With a focus on the lawful yet problematic and discretionary threatening and 'doing' of coercion performed daily on the landing, the author contributes to the growing scholarly literature on power in prison settings, and the developing field of the micro-sociology of violence and of radical interactionism. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology and criminology with interests in prisons, power and violence in institutions, and visual methods.

Punishment for Sale is the definitive modern history of private prisons, told through social, economic and political frames. The authors explore the origin of the ideas of modern privatization, the establishment of private prisons, and the efforts to keep expanding in the face of problems and bad publicity. The book provides a balanced telling of the story of private prisons and the resistance they engendered within the context of criminology, and it is intended for supplemental use in undergraduate and graduate courses in criminology, social problems, and race & ethnicity.

Today's high recidivism rates, combined with the rising costs of jails and prisons, are increasingly seen as problems that must be addressed on both moral and financial grounds. Research on prison and jail reentry typically focuses on barriers stemming from employment, housing, mental health, and substance abuse issues from the perspective of offenders returning to urban areas. This book explores the largely neglected topic of the specific challenges inmates experience when leaving jail and returning to rural areas. Rural Jail Reentry provides a thorough background and theoretical framework on reentry issues and rural crime patterns, and identifies perceptions of the most significant challenges to jail reentry in rural areas. Utilizing three robust samples-current inmates, probation and parole officers, and treatment staff-Ward examines what each group considers to be the most impactful factors surrounding rural jail re-entry. A springboard for future research and policy discussions, this book will be of interest to international researchers and practitioners interested in the topic of rural reentry, as well as graduate and upper-level undergraduate students concerned with contemporary issues in corrections, community-based corrections, critical issues in criminal justice, and criminal justice policy.

This volume aims to provoke reflection on the English conception and treatment of prisoners' rights, through juxtaposition with the conception of prisoners' rights in Germany. First, the German and English understandings of prisoners' legal status are examined; secondly these understandings are placed against the background of broader social, political, and legal factors; and thirdly, the methodological problems of comparative law are addressed. English and German approaches to prisoners' rights present illuminating contrasts. In England, despite significant judicial activity in the development of a jurisprudence of prisoners' rights, protection of prisoners' rights remains partial and equivocal. Many aspects of prison life are left within the realm of executive discretion. This equivocal commitment to rights in England is juxtaposed with Germany's highly articulated rights culture and its ambitious system of prisoners' rights protection under the Prison Act 1976. The German Prison Act sets out foundational principles of prison administration, affords prisoners positive rights, defines the limitations of prisoners' constitutional rights, and provides prisoners with recourse to a Prison Court. Moreover, these rights and principles have been developed and refined in a substantial body of prison law jurisprudence over the last thirty years.

Correctional policies for Islamist violent extremist offenders are often based on the premise that prisons can be hotbeds of radicalization. The perception that inmates are susceptible to violent extremist belief systems has given rise to a fervent international public, political, and scholarly debate and has led to the introduction of drastic, often expensive policies to counter the threat of prison radicalization. But is the introduction of these policies justified? A key question is whether violent extremist offenders should be concentrated in separate high-security prisons, or whether they should be integrated into the mainstream inmate population. Prisoner Radicalization and Terrorism Detention Policy argues that concentration strategies to manage violent extremist offenders are often flawed - based on untested, potentially false assumptions that are rooted in fear rather than in facts. Little academic evidence has been produced that can valuably inform policy making in this area. As a result, policies to detain violent extremist offenders may be inadequately tailored to achieve their objectives, and could even lead to an intensification of the violent extremist threat. This book is the first to present a detailed and systematic case study of the decision-making and implementation process behind terrorism detention policy. It will be essential reading for students, scholars and policymakers researching criminal justice, terrorism and extremism.

In 2007, the Corston Report recommended a far-reaching, radical, 'women-centred' approach to women's imprisonment in England and Wales. It suggested a 'fundamental re-thinking' about how services to support women in conflict with the law are delivered in custody and in the community, recommending the development and implementation of a decarceration strategy. This argued for appropriate treatment programmes in the community, reserving prison for only those women who commit serious and violent offences. Ten years on, what progress has been made? What is the relationship between Corston's vision and a more radical abolitionist agenda? Drawing on a range of international scholarship, this book contributes to the critical discourse on the penal system, human rights, and social injustice, revealing the consequences of imprisonment on the lives of women and their families. A decade on from Corston's publication, it critically reviews her report, revealing the slow progress in meeting the reforms it proposed. Identifying the significant barriers to change, it questions the failure to reverse the unrelenting growth of the women's prison population or to transform state responses to women's offending. Reflecting the global expansion of women's imprisonment, particularly marked in advanced democratic societies, the chapters include comparative contributions from jurisdictions where Corston's recommendations have relevance. It concludes with a critical appraisal of reformism and the case for penal abolition. Essential for applied and theory courses on prisons, punishment, and penology; social justice and the criminology of human rights; gender and crime; and feminist criminology.

Rethinking the American Prison Movement provides a short, accessible overview of the transformational and ongoing struggles against America's prison system. Dan Berger and Toussaint Losier show that prisoners have used strikes, lawsuits, uprisings, writings, and diverse coalitions with free-world allies to challenge prison conditions and other kinds of inequality. From the forced labor camps of the nineteenth century to the rebellious protests of the 1960s and 1970s to the rise of mass incarceration and its discontents, Rethinking the American Prison Movement is invaluable to anyone interested in the history of American prisons and the struggles for justice still echoing in the present day.

This landmark practical guide assists all those involved in monitoring detention conditions and investigating and preventing torture. The prestigious global author team identify the medical, legal and professional frameworks and international instruments applicable to those detained, and highlight how torture or other cruel and inhuman degrading treatments or punishments are identified, investigated and should be prevented. * A comprehensive and wide range of detention settings and circumstances are covered including police stations, prisons, mental health, and social care civil conditions to prisoner of war, detention camps, military, and armed conflict. * Advice, monitoring, and assessment is given for special groups, including the custody of women, children, vulnerable adults, and individuals on hunger strike * Practical guidelines are given for the assessment of ill-treatment of individuals in custody including sexual abuse * Online links to the latest legal, ethical, and medical guidelines for key countries help to make this book appropriate for all. Challenging, thought-provoking yet thoroughly practical, this book is essential reading for anyone involved in the monitoring of detention conditions and the treatment and investigation of individuals in any form of custody. The content is aimed primarily at healthcare professionals but it also highly relevant for anyone who may form part of a visiting team, including lay individuals, lawyers and law enforcement professionals, as well as for academics.

The rotary jail was one of the more unusual architectural designs in history. In response to a need for better control over prisoners, 18 of the revolving, escape-proof structures were constructed in the United States from 1882 through 1889. They had their problems. There were mechanical difficulties, due to the extreme weight of the components. Unwary prisoners lost digits or limbs when carousels were rotated without warning-one lost his life. Because inmates could only be let out of their cells one at a time, some rotary jails were closed as fire hazards. This book describes in detail their construction, operation and eventual demise, as well as some of the colorful inmates that were held in them.

This book offers a sustained study of one feature of the prison officer's job: the threat and use of force, which the author calls 'doing' coercion. Adopting an interactionist, micro-sociological perspective, the author presents new research based on almost two years of participant observation within an Italian custodial complex hosting both a prison and a forensic psychiatric hospital. Based on observation of emergency squad interventions during so-called 'critical events', together with visual methods and interviews with staff, 'Doing' Coercion in Male Custodial Settings constitutes an ethnographic exploration of both the organisation and the implicit and explicit practices of threatening and/or 'doing' coercion. With a focus on the lawful yet problematic and discretionary threatening and 'doing' of coercion performed daily on the landing, the author contributes to the growing scholarly literature on power in prison settings, and the developing field of the micro-sociology of violence and of radical interactionism. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology and criminology with interests in prisons, power and violence in institutions, and visual methods.

The impact of the United Nations "Healthy Prisons" initiative has highlighted the importance of health and health promotion in incarcerated populations. This invaluable book discusses the many health and medical issues that arise or are introduced into prisons from the perspective of both inmates and prison staff. Health and Health Promotion in Prison places key issues in prison healthcare into a historical perspective and investigates contemporary policy drivers. It then addresses the significant legal issues relating to health in prison settings and the human rights implications and questions that arise. The book presents a useful framework for health education in prison and a model for introducing structural, policy and health-related changes based on the UN Health in Prisons model, and also includes a special chapter on mental health issues. Providing a comprehensive and thought-provoking overview of health promotion issues in correctional environments, this is an essential reference for all those involved in prison healthcare.

Today's high recidivism rates, combined with the rising costs of jails and prisons, are increasingly seen as problems that must be addressed on both moral and financial grounds. Research on prison and jail reentry typically focuses on barriers stemming from employment, housing, mental health, and substance abuse issues from the perspective of offenders returning to urban areas. This book explores the largely neglected topic of the specific challenges inmates experience when leaving jail and returning to rural areas. Rural Jail Reentry provides a thorough background and theoretical framework on reentry issues and rural crime patterns, and identifies perceptions of the most significant challenges to jail reentry in rural areas. Utilizing three robust samples-current inmates, probation and parole officers, and treatment staff-Ward examines what each group considers to be the most impactful factors surrounding rural jail re-entry. A springboard for future research and policy discussions, this book will be of interest to international researchers and practitioners interested in the topic of rural reentry, as well as graduate and upper-level undergraduate students concerned with contemporary issues in corrections, community-based corrections, critical issues in criminal justice, and criminal justice policy.

Associations for librarianship frequently speak out against inequities especially when related to the freedom to read. Prisoners are in a grey area, often ignored and overlooked by policymakers, despite potential impact of library services for incarcerated individuals. The field is also de-professionalized: candidates sans graduate degrees in library science frequently fill positions and correctional institution administrators often author policies on library service. Authors writing about prison librarianship cite the need to implement the public library service model despite the dichotomy between this model and practical implementations of prison library service. The reason for this dichotomy is apparent: practices in prison libraries violate many tenets of librarianship with the justification of maintaining order in correctional institutions. The gap between policy and practice continues to grow in prison libraries. Prison Librarianship: The Neglected Profession is an exploration of this gap in prison libraries in the United States. The author investigates state, national, and international policies on prison libraries, reviews literature on the topic, and describes partnerships between prison and public libraries. To determine adherence to policy results from a national survey and follow-up interviews are shared, which serve as narratives to describe what is actually happening inside.

This study explores the pre-history of Irish convict transportation to New South Wales which began with the Queen in April 1791. It traces earlier attempts to revive the trans-Atlantic convict trade and the frustrated efforts by Irish authorities to join in the Botany Bay scheme after 1786. The nine Irish shipments to North America and the West Indies are described in detail for the first time, including the dramatic outcomes in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the Leeward Islands which eventually forced the Home Office to find space for Irish convicts on the Third Fleet. These events are related against the background of Dublin's burgeoning crime rate in the 1780s, the critical insecurity of its prison system and the troubled political relationship between Ireland and Britain.

"This is an exceptional personal testimony and story of achievement - Ahmed Othmani tells of his own appalling treatment when in detention and how it informed and inspired a lifetime vocation to struggle for the rights of all prisoners everywhere. As the story demonstrates, Othmani is one of those rare individuals who moved from passion and conviction to effective action - he was responsible for the establishment of one of the world's most reliable and mature human rights organizations, in the field of penal reform, Penal Reform International (PRI). His untimely death in Morocco in 2004 deprived the cause of a passionate advocate, but the work goes on." [From the Preface]

This title, first published in 1981, draws from an extensive range of national and local material, and examines how innovations in policy and administration, while solving problems or setting new objectives, frequently created or disclosed fresh difficulties, and brought different types of people into the administration and management of prisons, whose interests, values and expectations in turn often had significant effects upon penal ideas and their practical applications. Special attention has been paid to the study of recruitment, the work and influence of gaolers, keepers, governors, and highly administrative officials. This comprehensive book will be of interest to students of criminology and history.

This volume brings together an unusual collection of British captivity writings - composed during and after imprisonment and in conditions of siege. Writings from the 'Mutiny' of 1857 are well known, but there exists a vast body of texts, from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Burma, and the Indian subcontinent, that have rarely been compiled or examined. Written in anxiety and distress, or recalled with poignancy and anger, these siege narratives depict a very different Briton. A far cry from the triumphant conqueror, explorer or ruler, these texts give us the vulnerable, injured and frightened Englishman and woman who seek, in the most adverse of conditions, to retain a measure of stoicism and identity. From Robert Knox's 17th-century account of imprisonment in Sri Lanka, through J. Z. Holwell's famous account of the 'Black Hole' of Calcutta, through Florentia Sale's Afghan memoir, and Lady Inglis's 'Mutiny' diary from Lucknow, the book opens up a dark and revealing corner of the colonial archive. Lucid and intriguing, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of modern South Asia, colonial history, literary and culture studies.

The POW Camp at Fort McClellan, Alabama, was one of hundreds of American containment centers built to hold the hundreds of thousands of German prisoners captured during World War II. The camp's well maintained and humane facilities gained it a reputation as a ""model camp."" Military officials praised its elimination of major operational problems. International inspectors commended it, calling it one of the best camps in the country. Prisoners accepted and even enjoyed their time there. Drawing on official documents and recollections of prisoners, soldiers and civilians, this book provides a personal and detailed history of a widely praised and admired place of internment.

The second edition of the Handbook on Prisons provides a completely revised and updated collection of essays on a wide range of topics concerning prisons and imprisonment. Bringing together three of the leading prison scholars in the UK as editors, this new volume builds on the success of the first edition and reveals the range and depth of prison scholarship around the world. The Handbook contains chapters written not only by those who have established and developed prison research, but also features contributions from ex-prisoners, prison governors and ex-governors, prison inspectors and others who have worked with prisoners in a wide range of professional capacities. This second edition includes several completely new chapters on topics as diverse as prison design, technology in prisons, the high security estate, therapeutic communities, prisons and desistance, supermax and solitary confinement, plus a brand new section on international perspectives. The Handbook aims to convey the reality of imprisonment, and to reflect the main issues and debates surrounding prisons and prisoners, while also providing novel ways of thinking about familiar penal problems and enhancing our theoretical understanding of imprisonment. The Handbook on Prisons, Second edition is a key text for students taking courses in prisons, penology, criminal justice, criminology and related subjects, and is also an essential reference for academics and practitioners working in the prison service, or in related agencies, who need up-to-date knowledge of thinking on prisons and imprisonment.

Michel Foucault's writing about the Panopticon in Discipline and Punish has dominated discussions of the prison and the novel, and recent literary criticism draws heavily from Foucauldian ideas about surveillance to analyze metaphorical forms of confinement: policing, detection, and public scrutiny and censure. But real Victorian prisons and the novels that portray them have few similarities to the Panopticon. Sean Grass provides a necessary alternative to Foucault by tracing the cultural history of the Victorian prison, and pointing to the tangible relations between Victorian confinement and the narrative production of the self. The Self in the Cellexamines the ways in which separate confinement prisons, with their demand for autobiographical production, helped to provide an impetus and a model that guided novelists' explorations of the private self in Victorian fiction.

The growing body of work on imprisonment, desistance and rehabilitation has mainly focused on policies and treatment programmes and how they are delivered. Experiencing Imprisonment reflects recent developments in research that focus on the active role of the offender in the process of justice. Bringing together experts from around the world and presenting a range of comparative critical research relating to key themes of the pains of imprisonment, stigma, power and vulnerability, this book explores the various ways in which offenders relate to the justice systems and how these relationships impact the nature and effectiveness of their efforts to reduce offending. Experiencing Imprisonment showcases cutting-edge international and comparative critical research on how imprisonment is experienced by those people living and working within imprisonment institutions in North America and Northern, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Scandinavia. The research explores the subjective experience of imprisonment from the perspective of a variety of staff and prisoner groups, including juveniles, adult female and male prisoners, older prisoners, sex offenders, wrongfully convicted offenders and newly released prisoners. Offering a unique view of what it is like to be a prisoner or a prison officer, the chapters in this book argue for a prioritisation of understanding the subjective experiences of imprisonment as essential to developing effective and humane systems of punishment. This is essential reading for academics and students involved in the study of criminology, penology and the sociology of imprisonment. It will also be of interest to Criminal Justice practitioners and policymakers around the globe.

Correctional officers face considerable stress, risk, and danger that lead to poor physical and mental health outcomes. In fact, their life expectancy is 15 years shorter than the national average. Public perception and media portrayals of correctional officers tend to reinforce stereotypes of brutish, improper, and uncontrolled behavior. Yet the reality is that correctional officers are operating a default public and mental health system for a sizeable portion of our society, a responsibility that exposes them to considerable risk. These negative effects have been compounded by an international staffing crisis that has made our jails and prisons far less safe for working officers. To address this situation, this book features an examination of a combined 11,313 correctional officers and 42 of their family members in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It explores proactive strategies that can reduce rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in correctional officers, which currently surpasses those found in returning military veterans who experienced combat. It then delves into the dynamics of correctional officer suicide, featuring the perspectives of their families. This book highlights innovative approaches that can build on existing strengths including the role of international exchange programs. It presents universal themes that impact the safety, wellbeing, and resiliency of correctional officers, along with positive outcomes related to evidence-based programs that maximize health in the correctional workplace. This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of criminology, mental health, public policy, social work, and sociology. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Criminal Justice Studies.