As a part of the debate on penitentiary architecture, this book proposes a critical interpretation of the conceptual elements and design approaches involved. This proposal, more than others, "mend" the relationship, between theoretical conception and actual building practice of the prison. The interpretation is developed from the idea that the architectural project, when it materialises in a built structure, is always the material expression of an abstract idea and of a specific vision of the world which manifests itself through the architectural consistency of the building and of the built spaces. For a long time the subject of penitentiary architecture had been neglected by contemporary architectural culture, permitting the design of prisons to be the result of a combination of obsolete practices, security regulations and the wish to reduce construction costs, in detriment of the quality of the interior space and of the efficiency of the penitentiary treatment. Thus the conception of the building focused on severe incarceration, and the refusal to accept the possibility of a more open prison remained mostly unvaried through time. Today, the subject of detention has once again caught the public eye, and that the problems related to it have become untenable. The need has become evident for a more efficient penitentiary system capable of producing positive changes in the detainees. It is thus necessary to re-think the architecture of detention in terms of the quality of space and of the respect of the dignity of the individuals, through new modes of detention, and especially through a knowledgeable design that is the expression of a renewed cultural stance that strengthens the re-educational value of the prison sentence, no longer considering it exclusively as the temporal suspension of certain rights. The objectives expressed through new theoretical developments, represent an ambitious and progressive project aimed at eradicating conservative and backward ideas regarding the role of prison architecture, and propose a new disciplinary conception of the architectural project, open to the academic and professional world in the attempt to solve and make effective the relationship between architectural design, building practices and management of the penitentiary structure. The text presented here focuses on the creation of organisational-functional tools for open-regime minimum security structures and on the identification of architectural solutions in which the residential and domestic features of the structures prevail over the typological and distributive layouts typical of traditional penitentiary buildings. The analysis aims at identifying the main essential principles for an efficient design, such as: the location, size, spatial organisation, typology of housing space, and last but not less important, the rationalisation of the internal flows. The key elements identified are summarised into a series of general design criteria aimed at establishing an efficient relationship between the functional model and the typological structure, as well as between the building and the surrounding urban fabric.

Established as America's first foreign naval base following the Spanish-American War, Guantnamo is now more often thought of as our Devil's Island, the gulag of our times. This book takes readers beyond the orange-jumpsuited detainees of today's headlines to provide the first comprehensive history of Guantnamo from its origins to the present.

Occupying 45 square miles of land and sea, Guantnamo has for more than a century symbolized the imperial impulse within U.S. foreign policy, and its occupation is decried by Cuba as a violation of international law-even though a treaty legally grants the U.S. a lease in perpetuity. Stephen Schwab now describes the base's role in American, Caribbean, and global history, explaining how it came to be, why it's still there, and how it continues to serve a variety of purposes.

Schwab views the base's creation as part of a broad U.S. strategy of annexations, protectorates, and limited interventions devised to create a strong sphere of influence in the western Atlantic. He charts its history from this early belief that it would prevent European powers from staking imperial claims in the Caribbean and examines the crucial defensive role that Guantnamo played as a convoy hub for strategic goods during World War II. He then looks at clashes over Guantnamo during the Cold War, culminating in LBJ's decision to make the base independent by firing Cuban workers and building a desalinization plant. Schwab also fleshes out Guantnamo's ongoing roles as the U.S. Navy's lone forward base in the Caribbean, providing refueling for U.S. and allied ships, as a Coast Guard station engaged in search-and-rescue missions and counternarcotics operations, and as a U.S. facility for processing undocumented aliens.

Even though the Castro government persistently protests America's presence--and refuses even to bank the rent that the U.S. dutifully pays--Guantnamo remains the only place where diplomatic exchanges between the two countries occur, and Schwab documents how the facility has served mutual interests as both a point of nationalistic frictions and a center for diplomatic compromise. By presenting Guantnamo's story within its broader historical framework, his book gives readers a greater appreciation of America's true stake in this controversial Caribbean outpost.

Are advantaged offenders defenseless against the harshness of prison life? Based upon a qualitative study of the prison adjustment of advantaged offenders--those who, prior to prison, possessed college degrees and held high status occupations with commensurately high incomes--this book challenges the special sensitivity hypothesis and concludes that these offenders adjust well to incarceration. The author compared a group of advantaged offenders to a similar group of nonadvantaged offenders, both drawn from New York State prisons, and discovered that the advantaged offenders exhibited little (if any) engagement in institutional misconduct. They also adopted effective coping strategies.

DeRosia presents a thematic analysis of in-depth, focused interviews with both subsamples, as well as vignettes based upon those interviews. Her findings reveal that advantaged offenders hold a perspective on doing time, including prescriptions for avoiding trouble, and make conscious efforts to avoid trouble by "using" time beneficially. This study contains the most current statistics available on corrections in the U.S., including its organization, the overcrowding crisis, and prisoner profiles. The nature of life in prison and prior research on adjustment are also examined.

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"An important and significant contribution. . . . A study of the social construction of gender and how culture and agency influence the meaning of work . . ., vivid and compelling."
--"American Journal of Sociology"

When most people think of prisons, they imagine chaos, violence, and fundamentally, an atmosphere of overwhelming brute masculinity. But real prisons rarely fit the "Big House" stereotype of popular film and literature. One fifth of all correctional officers are women, and the rate at which women are imprisoned is growing faster than that of men. Yet, despite increasing numbers of women prisoners and officers, ideas about prison life and prison work are sill dominated by an exaggerated image of men's prisons where inmates supposedly struggle for physical dominance.

In a rare comparative analysis of men's and women's prisons, Dana Britton identifies the factors that influence the gendering of the American workplace, a process that often leaves women in lower-paying jobs with less prestige and responsibility.

In interviews with dozens of male and female officers in five prisons, Britton explains how gender shapes their day-to-day work experiences. Combining criminology, penology, and feminist theory, she offers a radical new argument for the persistence of gender inequality in prisons and other organizations. At Work in the Iron Cage demonstrates the importance of the prison as a site of gender relations as well as social control.

This work is an in-depth, on-the-ground examination of how prisons impact rural communities, including a revealing study of two rural communities that have chosen prisons as an economic development strategy. A recent study by the Urban Institute estimates that one-third of all counties in the United States house a prison, and that our prison and jail population is now over 2.1 million. Another report indicates that more than 97 percent of all U.S. prisoners are eventually released, and communities are absorbing nearly 650,000 formerly incarcerated individuals each year. These figures are particularly alarming considering the fact that rural communities are using prisons as economic development vehicles without fully understanding the effects of these jails on the area. This book is the result of author Eric J. Williams' ground-level research about the effects of prisons upon two rural American communities that lobbied to host maximum security prisons. Through hundreds of interviews conducted while living in Florence, Colorado, and Beeville, Texas, Williams offers the perspective of local residents on all sides of the issue, as well as a social history told mainly from the standpoint of those who lobbied for the prisons. Provides compelling data from over 200 formal and informal interviews of local politicians, residents, and prison officials, including the former directors of Texas's prison system Utilizes a combination of two qualitative methods to conduct the research

Before the nineteenth century, American prisons were used to hold people for trial and not to incarcerate them for wrong-doing. Only after independence did American states begin to reject such public punishment as whipping and pillorying and turn to imprisonment instead. In this legal, social, and political history, Adam J. Hirsch explores the reasons behind this change. Hirsch draws on evidence from throughout the early Republic and examines European sources to establish the American penitentiary's ideological origins and parallel development abroad. He focuses on Massachusetts as a case study of the transformation and presents in-depth data from that state. He challenges the notion that the penitentiary came as a by-product of Enlightenment thought, contending instead that the ideological foundations for criminal incarceration had been laid long before the eighteenth century and were premised upon old criminological theories. According to Hirsch, it was not new ideas but new social realities-the increasing urbanization and population mobility that promoted rampant crime-that made the penitentiary attractive to post-revolutionary legislators. Hirsch explores possible economic motives for incarcerating criminals and sentencing them to hard labor, but concludes that there is little evidence to support this. He finds that advocates of the penitentiary intended only that the prison pay for itself through enforced labor. Moreover, prison advocates frequently involved themselves in other contemporary social movements that reflected their concern to promote the welfare of criminals along with other oppressed groups.

Over 2 million people are incarcerated in America's prisons and jails, eight times as many since 1975. At current incarceration rates, an African American born in the U.S. today has a 30 per cent chance of spending some time in prison. Mandatory minimum sentencing, parole agencies intent on sending people back to prison, three-strike laws, for-profit prisons, and other changes in the legal system have contributed to this spectacular rise of the general prison population. After overseeing the largest city jail system in the country, Michael Jacobson knows first-hand the inner workings of the corrections system. In Downsizing Prisons, he convincingly argues that mass incarceration will not, as many have claimed, reduce crime nor create more public safety. Simply put, throwing away the key is not the answer. Given the dire budget shortfalls facing most states, there really is no choice: we no longer have the revenue to continue prison expansion while simultaneously supporting education, health care, and lower taxes. Downsizing Prisons examines specific ways that states have begun to transform their prison systems. Jacobson offers practical policy solutions and strategies, including: changing how parole and probation agencies operate, significantly reducing punitive sentencing and technical parole violations, and supporting drug-treatment programs for low-level drug offenders. These policy changes can actually increase public safety as well as save money. As our prison populations swell to record levels, it is clear that the time to reform our prison system has come. Downsizing Prisons offers a clear and persuasive plan of action.

A comprehensive overview of American penology covering practices, historical precedents, ideologies, changing attitudes, system descriptions, and trends in prison management, as well as noteworthy penal literature. The entries are alphabetically arranged in a concise dictionary format and are cross-referenced to clarify the more technical penal terminology. There is a brief description of each state prison system and major components of the federal system are discussed. Entries include administrative structure, components of the adult and juvenile inmate populations in their respective institutions, and operating budgets for an indication of current costs and capital expenditure budgets for furture expansion costs to corrections systems. The dictionary provides an overview of a broad variety of topics in American penology. Each entry is followed by complete references and cross references to clarify technical terminology of penology. The entries give essential information about the administrative structure, adult and adolescent population in respective institutions, and both operating budgets for current costs and capital budgets for future expansion for interstate comparison. Other entries include program description, ideology, techniques, and a historical perspective of American prisons.

On 9th August 2001, 22 days after Jeffrey Archer was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury, he was transferred from HMP Belmarsh, a double-A Category high-security prison in south London, to HMP Wayland, a Category C establishment in Norfolk. He served 67 days in Wayland and during that time, as this account testifies, encountered not only the daily degradations of a dangerously over-stretched prison service, but the spirit and courage of his fellow inmates.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This book explores how prisoners turn themselves into active opponents of the prison regime, and thus reclaim their freedom and manhood. Using extensive ethnographic fieldwork from Norway's largest prison, Ugelvik provides a compelling analysis of the relationship between power, practices of resistance and prisoner subjectivity.

Exploring the way in which criminal punishment is interpreted and narrated by offenders, this book examines the meaning offenders ascribe to their sentence and the consequences of this for future desistance.

This book examines how prisons meet challenges of religious diversity, in an era of increasing multiculturalism and globalization. Social scientists studying corrections have noted the important role that religious or spiritual practice can have on rehabilitation, particularly for inmates with coping with stress, mental health and substance abuse issues. In the past, the historical figure of the prison chaplain operated primarily in a Christian context, following primarily a Christian model. Increasingly, prison populations (inmates as well as employees) display diversity in their ethnic, cultural, religious and geographic backgrounds. As public institutions, prisons are compelled to uphold the human rights of their inmates, including religious freedom. Prisons face challenges in approaching religious plurality and secularism, and maintaining prisoners' legal rights to religious freedom. The contributions to this work present case studies that examine how prisons throughout Europe have approached challenges of religious diversity. Featuring contributions from the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, this interdisciplinary volume includes contributions from social and political scientists, religion scholars and philosophers examining the role of religion and religious diversity in prison rehabilitation. It will be of interest to researchers in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Social and Political Science, Human Rights, Public Policy, and Religious Studies.

Political instability is nearly always accompanied by fuller prisons, and this was particularly true during the "long" Second World War, when military mobilization, social disorder, wrenching political changes, and shifting national boundaries swelled the ranks of the imprisoned and broadened the carceral reach of the state. This volume brings together theoretically sophisticated, empirically rich studies of key transitional moments that transformed the scope and nature of European prisons during and after the war. It depicts the complex interactions of both penal and administrative institutions with the men and women who experienced internment, imprisonment, and detention at a time when these categories were in perpetual flux.

Examines prisons and prison systems throughout the world. Prisons have undoubtedly changed over the years, as have penal practices in general, though more so in some countries than others. Prisons and prison systems have long been an overlooked part of criminal justice research, and as a result, limited material is available on many institutions. This comprehensive encyclopedia provides an historical overview of institutions and systems around the world, as well as penal theories, prisoner culture and life, and notable prisoners and personnel. Readers will find a wealth of information including material on such famous prisons as the Tower of London and Alcatraz, as well as on such topics as boot camps and parole. The other entries include Devil's Island, supermaximum prisons, Nelson Mandela, the Pennsylvania system, and Amnesty International. Also, numerous appendixes list famous prisoners, prison museums, prison slang, and more.

This edited collection utilises recent advances in theories on masculinities to explore and analyse the ways in which prisons shape performances of gender, both within prison settings and following release from prison. The authors assess here how the highly gendered world of the prison (where the population is overwhelmingly male in most countries) impacts upon the performance of masculinities. Including original pieces from England, Australia, Scotland and the USA, as well as contributions which take a broader methodological and conceptual approach to masculinity, this engaging and original collection holds international appeal and relevance. Cumulatively, the chapters illustrate the importance of considering a nuanced understanding of masculinity within prison research, and as such, will be of particular interest for scholars of penology, gender studies, and the criminal justice system.

Prison, Inc. provides a first-hand account of life behind bars in a controversial new type of prison facility: the private prison. These for-profit prisons are becoming increasingly popular as state budgets get tighter. Yet as privatization is seen as a necessary and cost-saving measure, not much is known about how these facilities are run and whether or not they can effectively watch over this difficult and dangerous population. For the first time, Prison, Inc. provides a look inside one of these private prisons as told through the eyes of an actual inmate, K.C. Carceral who has been in the prison system for over twenty years.

Can the morality of a nation really be judged by how it treats its prisoners? The United States has more people in prison than any other nation, and the nature of the American correctional system continues to be the subject of passionate debate. This unique combination of historical overview and personal testimony provides an unprecedented look at the U.S. correctional system. The first section of the book places the notion of corrections within an historical context. The second examines contemporary correctional issues. In the third and final section, Stephen Stanko, an inmate in the South Carolina correctional system, provides a detailed look at prison life from the inside. Stanko offers his perspective--in a voice that is blunt but never preachy--on the harsh realities of prison life, making this a rigorous exploration of our correctional system in both theory and practice.

During the Zimbabwean struggle for independence, the settler regime imprisoned numerous activists and others it suspected of being aligned with the guerrillas. This book is the first to look closely at the histories and lived experiences of these political detainees and prisoners, showing how they challenged and negotiated their incarceration.

Hell, the first volume in Jeffrey Archer's The Prison Diaries, is the author's daily record of the time he spent there. The sun is shining through the bars of my window on what must be a glorious summer day. I've been incarcerated in a cell five paces by three for twelve and a half hours, and will not be let out again until midday; eighteen and a half hours of solitary confinement. There is a child of seventeen in the cell below me who has been charged with shoplifting - his first offence, not even convicted - and he is being locked up for eighteen and a half hours, unable to speak to anyone. This is Great Britain in the twenty-first century, not Turkey, not Nigeria, not Kosovo, but Britain. On Thursday 19 July 2001, after a perjury trial lasting seven weeks, Jeffrey Archer was sentenced to four years in jail. He was to spend the first twenty-two days and fourteen hours in HMP Belmarsh, a double A-Category high-security prison in South London, which houses some of Britain's most violent criminals. This is his illuminating insight into prison life.