First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The United States arrests, punishes, and locks up far more people-both juveniles and adults-than any other democratic country in the world. Indeed, despite the fact that the U.S holds 5 percent of the world's population, it contains 25 percent of its prisoners. These individuals not only constitute a disproportionately large group, but also suffer decreased employment opportunities and housing discrimination after their release, making a return to prison all the more likely. Headlines of articles in US media allude to "Prison Without Punishment" in Germany and "Radical Humaneness" in Norway, but why are prison conditions in those countries so notably less bleak than those here? And when recidivism rates are lower in countries with these kinder, gentler prisons than in America, why do prisons here remain so harsh? In Unusually Cruel, Mark Morje Howard argues that the United States' prison system is exceptional-in a truly shameful way. Due to its exceptional nature, most scholars have focused on the internal dynamics that have produced the US' unusually large and severe prison system. Howard conducts a comparative analysis as a corrective to this myopia, demonstrating just how far the US lies outside of the norm of established democracies in this regard. He uses a new methodology in order to put American incarceration rates in perspective. The book compares data from 21 countries-all advanced industrialized societies, liberal democracies, and OECD members-ultimately showing that the US holds more than three times the number of incarcerated people of its closest competitor, New Zealand. This method reveals interesting findings, including that, although the female incarceration rate is only a fraction of the male incarceration in America, the US imprisons more than five times as many women as any other comparable country. And strikingly, while crime rates are roughly equal among countries in the western world, the US incarceration rate is seven times the average rate of European countries. Howard shows that in every measure of punitiveness-including policing, sentencing, prison conditions, and rehabilitation-US policies are harsher, producing worse individual outcomes and lower public safety, than those of any comparable country. The book does not merely paint a grim picture, however. Unusually Cruel also identifies solutions that are less punishing and more productive, arguing that, by learning from models that have worked elsewhere, the US can get out of its criminal justice quagmire.

This book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of how contemporary American prison narratives reflect and produce ideologies of masculinity in the United States, and in so doing, compellingly engages popular culture in order to demonstrate the profound ways in which implicit understandings of prison life shape all Americans, and their reactions to people both incarcerated and not.

This book draws together the work of a new community of scholars with a growing interest in carceral geography: the geographical study of practices of imprisonment and detention. It combines work by geographers on 'mainstream' penal establishments where people are incarcerated by the prevailing legal system, with geographers' recent work on migrant detention centres, where irregular migrants and 'refused' asylum seekers are detained, ostensibly pending decisions on admittance or repatriation. Working in these contexts, the book's contributors investigate the geographical location and spatialities of institutions, the nature of spaces of incarceration and detention and experiences inside them, governmentality and prisoner agency, cultural geographies of penal spaces, and mobility in the carceral context. In dialogue with emergent and topical agendas in geography around mobility, space and agency, and in relation to international policy challenges such as the (dis)functionality of imprisonment and the search for alternatives to detention, this book presents a timely addition to emergent interdisciplinary scholarship that will prompt dialogue among those working in geography, criminology and prison sociology.

First published in 1992, Crime, Criminal Justice and the Probation Service is a thought-provoking analysis of the role of the probation service in developing an integrated system of criminal justice. Robert Harris provides readable information about our knowledge of such areas as criminal statistics, victims, fear of crime and crime prevention. He also explores the treatment of women and ethnic minorities by the criminal justice system, the question of a sentencing council and the future of community corrections. A central theme is that all the professionals involved in the criminal justice system must work more closely together so that the mistakes of the past can be avoided in the future. The book therefore has a wide appeal not only to probation officers and social workers, but also to criminal justice professionals and administrators, including the police and the legal profession.

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences. This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press. Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1970 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

Metaphors of Confinement: The Prison in Fact, Fiction, and Fantasy offers a historical survey of imaginings of the prison as expressed in carceral metaphors in a range of texts about imprisonment from Antiquity to the present as well as non-penal situations described as confining or restrictive. These imaginings coalesce into a 'carceral imaginary' that determines the way we think about prisons, just as social debates about punishment and criminals feed into the way carceral imaginary develops over time. Examining not only English-language prose fiction but also poetry and drama from the Middle Ages to postcolonial, particularly African, literature, the book juxtaposes literary and non-literary contexts and contrasts fictional and nonfictional representations of (im)prison(ment) and discussions about the prison as institution and experiential reality. It comments on present-day trends of punitivity and foregrounds the ethical dimensions of penal punishment. The main argument concerns the continuity of carceral metaphors through the centuries despite historical developments that included major shifts in policy (such as the invention of the penitentiary). The study looks at selected carceral metaphors, often from two complementary perspectives, such as the home as prison or the prison as home, or the factory as prison and the prison as factory. The case studies present particularly relevant genres and texts that employ these metaphors, often from a historical perspective that analyses development through different periods.

This book, first published in 1983, examines in detail the training of the key group of people within the British prison system: prison governors. It shows how problems, endemic to the prison system, influences their training; how staff seek to construct a coherent training course and how recruits struggle to come to terms with their ambiguous new role. It describes how attitudes towards the job changed during the training period and argues that the lack of a clear role-image prevented the adoption of a common occupational culture.

In 2003, the US Senate and Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), prompting a number of research projects that cumulatively began to broaden and deepen our understanding of this complex aspect of prison life. Risk Markers for Sexual Victimization and Predation in Prison contains the results of Dr. Warren and Dr. Jackson's study, and it extends the literature on prison rape in important and distinct ways. Their research, which encompasses the full continuum of sexual behavior among incarcerated individuals, succeeds in identifying multi-layered predictive models for different types of sexual behavior across and within genders. The process by which the authors came to their study design, their experiences while implementing it, and the nature and significance of their findings, represent the content of this book.

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.

In Search of Safety takes a close look at the sources of gendered violence and conflict in women's prisons. The authors examine how intersectional inequalities and cumulative disadvantages are at the root of prison conflict and violence and mirror the women's pathways to prison. Women must negotiate these inequities by developing forms of prison capital-social, human, cultural, emotional, and economic-to ensure their safety while inside. The authors also analyze how conflict and subsequent violence result from human-rights violations inside the prison that occur within the gendered context of substandard prison conditions, inequalities of capital among those imprisoned, and relationships with correctional staff. In Search of Safety proposes a way forward-the implementation of international human-rights standards for U.S. prisons.

This book tells a story of successful prison reform that brought the recidivism rate of prisoners down from 44% to 24%. In the process of this reform, the entire Prison Service was transformed from a custody focused mindset to a rehabilitation centred culture. This change was wrought despite the lack of enthusiasm of the then political leadership.The author describes his personal role in the reform effort, the methodology used to engender change in organizational culture and the struggles for the soul of the prison service and the hearts and minds of all those involved. These include organizations involved in the aftercare of ex-offenders, volunteers who came forward to assist in the efforts and the families and employers of offenders and ex-offenders. The journey ends with the Yellow Ribbon Project that now embodies the rehabilitative efforts for ex-offenders.The Making of Captains of Lives is a personal account of a public sector leader who has helped built a highly efficient prison system in Singapore, providing a strong case study for successful change management and public sector leadership. It will encourage the hearts of all those civil servants who believe in serving their nations and societies by devoting themselves to a worthy cause in their day-to-day work.

SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER As seen on BBC Breakfast Horrifying, heartbreaking and eye-opening, these are the stories, the patients and the cases that have characterised a career spent being a doctor behind bars. Violence. Drugs. Suicide. Welcome to the world of a Prison Doctor. Dr Amanda Brown has treated inmates in the UK's most infamous prisons - first in young offenders' institutions, then at the notorious Wormwood Scrubs and finally at Europe's largest women-only prison in Europe, Bronzefield. From miraculous pregnancies to dirty protests, and from violent attacks on prisoners to heartbreaking acts of self-harm, she has witnessed it all. In this eye-opening, inspirational memoir, Amanda reveals the stories, the patients and the cases that have shaped a career helping those most of us would rather forget. Despite their crimes, she is still their doctor.

Little of what we know about prison comes from the mouths of prisoners, and very few academic accounts of prison life manage to convey some of its most profound and important features: its daily pressures and frustrations, the culture of the wings and landings, and the relationships which shape the everyday experience of being imprisoned. The Prisoner aims to redress this by foregrounding prisoners' own accounts of prison life in what is an original and penetrating edited collection. Each of its chapters explores a particular prisoner sub-group or an important aspect of prisoners' lives, and each is divided into two sections: extended extracts from interviews with prisoners, followed by academic commentary and analysis written by a leading scholar or practitioner. This structure allows prisoners' voices to speak for themselves, while situating what they say in a wider discussion of research, policy and practice. The result is a rich and evocative portrayal of the lived reality of imprisonment and a poignant insight into prisoners' lives. The book aims to bring to life key penological issues and to provide an accessible text for anyone interested in prisons, including students, practitioners and a general audience. It seeks to represent and humanize a group which is often silent in discussions of imprisonment, and to shine a light on a world which is generally hidden from view.

In the growing field of comparative criminal justice, the Nordic countries are regularly used as exceptions to the global move towards growing rates of imprisonment and tougher, less welfare-oriented crime-control policies.

Why are the Nordic penal institutions viewed as so different from a non-Nordic vantage point? Are Nordic prisons and penal policies in fact positive exceptions to the general rule? If they are, what exactly are the exceptional qualities, and why are the Nordic societies lucky enough to have them? Are there important overlooked examples of Nordic bad practice in the penal area? Could there be a specifically Nordic way of doing prison research, contributing to the gap between internal and external perspectives?

In considering among others the above questions, this book explores and discusses the Nordic jurisdictions as contexts for the specific penal policies and practices that may or may not be described as exceptional.

Written by leading prison scholars from the Nordic countries as well as selected researchers from the English-speaking world looking in, this book will be particularly useful for students of criminology and practitioners across the Nordic countries, but also of relevance in a wider geographical context.

In the growing field of comparative criminal justice, the Nordic countries are regularly used as exceptions to the global move towards growing rates of imprisonment and tougher, less welfare-oriented crime-control policies.

Why are the Nordic penal institutions viewed as so different from a non-Nordic vantage point? Are Nordic prisons and penal policies in fact positive exceptions to the general rule? If they are, what exactly are the exceptional qualities, and why are the Nordic societies lucky enough to have them? Are there important overlooked examples of Nordic bad practice in the penal area? Could there be a specifically Nordic way of doing prison research, contributing to the gap between internal and external perspectives?

In considering among others the above questions, this book explores and discusses the Nordic jurisdictions as contexts for the specific penal policies and practices that may or may not be described as exceptional.

Written by leading prison scholars from the Nordic countries as well as selected researchers from the English-speaking world looking in, this book will be particularly useful for students of criminology and practitioners across the Nordic countries, but also of relevance in a wider geographical context.

"Supermax" prisons, conceived by the United States in the early 1980s, are typically reserved for convicted political criminals such as terrorists and spies and for other inmates who are considered to pose a serious ongoing threat to the wider community, to the security of correctional institutions, or to the safety of other inmates. Prisoners are usually restricted to their cells for up to twenty-three hours a day and typically have minimal contact with other inmates and correctional staff. Not only does the Federal Bureau of Prisons operate one of these facilities, but almost every state has either a supermax wing or stand-alone supermax prison. The Globalization of Supermax Prisons examines why nine advanced industrialized countries have adopted the supermax prototype, paying particular attention to the economic, social, and political processes that have affected each state. Featuring essays that look at the U.S.-run prisons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanemo, this collection seeks to determine if the American model is the basis for the establishment of these facilities and considers such issues as the support or opposition to the building of a supermax and why opposition efforts failed; the allegation of human rights abuses within these prisons; and the extent to which the decision to build a supermax was influenced by developments in the United States. Additionally, contributors address such domestic matters as the role of crime rates, media sensationalism, and terrorism in each country's decision to build a supermax prison.

This book is the first examination of the history of prison policy in Ireland. Despite sharing a legal and penal heritage with the United Kingdom, Ireland s prison policy has taken a different path. This book examines how penal-welfarism was experienced in Ireland, shedding further light on the nature of this concept as developed by David Garland. While the book has an Irish focus, it has a theoretical resonance far beyond Ireland. This book investigates and describes prison policy in Ireland since the foundation of the state in 1922, analyzes and assesses the factors influencing policy during this period and explores and examines the links between prison policy and the wider social, economic, political and cultural development of the Irish state.

It also explores how Irish prison policy has come to take on its particular character, with comparatively low prison numbers, significant reliance on short sentences and a policy-making climate in which long periods of neglect are interspersed with bursts of political activity all prominent features.

Drawing on the emerging scholarship of policy analysis, the book argues that it is only through close attention to the way in which policy is formed that we will fully understand the nature of prison policy. In addition, the book examines the effect of political imprisonment in the Republic of Ireland, which, until now, has remained relatively unexplored.

This book will be of special interest to students of criminology within Ireland, but also of relevance to students of comparative criminal justice, criminology and criminal justice policy making in the UK and beyond.

'A stunning debut . . . I loved every page' CLARE MACKINTOSH 'I loved this book. Its witchy, and sweaty and unputdownable. It takes a traditional thriller structure and turns it on it's head' DAISY JOHNSON 'Refreshing, heartbreaking and magical . . . Every mother should read this' CATH WEEKS 'A riveting and utterly convincing story, that shines a light on the shadows between right and wrong. A sensitive and thought-provoking into the lives of women' KAREN MILLWARD HARGRAVE THE BATTLE ON THE INSIDE IS JUST THE BEGINNING Dani hasn't had an easy life. She's made some bad choices and now she's paying the ultimate price; prison. With her young daughter Bethany, growing up in foster care, Dani is determined to be free and reunited with her. There's only one problem; Dani can't stay out of trouble. Dani's new cellmate Martha is quiet and unassuming. There's something about her that doesn't add up. When Martha offers Dani one last chance at freedom, she doesn't hesitate. Everything she wants is on the outside, but Dani is stuck on the inside. Is it possible to break out when everyone is trying to keep you in . . .

Shining a light on the deadly health consequences of incarceration. Finalist in the PROSE Award for Best Book in Anthropology, Criminology, and Sociology by the Association of American Publishers Kalief Browder was 16 when he was arrested in the Bronx for allegedly stealing a backpack. Unable to raise bail and unwilling to plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit, Browder spent three years in New York's infamous Rikers Island jail-two in solitary confinement-while awaiting trial. After his case was dismissed in 2013, Browder returned to his family, haunted by his ordeal. Suffering through the lonely hell of solitary, Browder had been violently attacked by fellow prisoners and corrections officers throughout his incarceration. Consumed with depression, Browder committed suicide in 2015. He was just 22 years old. In Life and Death in Rikers Island, Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer for New York City's jails, explains the profound health risks associated with incarceration. From neglect and sexual abuse to blocked access to care and exposure to brutality, Venters details how jails are designed and run to create new health risks for prisoners-all while forcing doctors and nurses into complicity or silence. Pairing prisoner experiences with cutting-edge research into prison risk, Venters reveals the disproportionate extent to which the health risks of jail are meted out to those with behavioral health problems and people of color. He also presents compelling data on alternative strategies that can reduce health risks. This revelatory and groundbreaking book concludes with the author's analysis of the case for closing Rikers Island jails and his advice on how to do it for the good of the incarcerated.

This book engages with a controversial issue, namely the establishment of penal colonies and concentration camps in imperial spaces, which have informed ongoing debates on the repressive practices of colonial rule and popular resistance against it. The contributors offer a reassessment of the history of politically motivated incarceration based upon a multi-disciplinary perspective in a global, imperial setting during the twentieth century. The introduction and seven chapters engage with comparative and transnational perspectives on political persecution, forced confinement and colonial rule in British, French, German, Belgian and Portuguese dominions in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America. Addressing political incarceration's global imperial dimensions, they focus upon the organisation, strategies, narratives and practices associated with political internment in Africa (Angola, Tanzania, Rhodesia, South Africa), Latin America (French Guyana) and the Pacific region (New Caledonia). Penal legislation, policies of convict transport and political imprisonment, resettlement, prison regimes, resistance and liberation struggles, counter insurgency, prisoner agency, and prisons as cultural spaces and of memory are discussed here for different time periods from the mid-1800s to the late twentieth century. The chapters build upon the ongoing debate on political incarceration in the empire and the remarkable dynamic scientific research witnessed over the last decades. As a result, they provide novel insights into the nature of legal systems, colonial discourse, memory, racial segregation and persecution, prisoners' narratives of practices of punishment and incarceration, and human rights abuses in imperial spaces. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. The editors have also written an original conclusion to the present volume.

The growth of Islam in Europe is reflected in the increasing numbers of Muslims in British and French prisons, but authorities have responded differently to the challenges presented by Muslim prisoners in each country. The findings of three years of intensive research in a variety of prisons show that British prisons facilitate and control the practice d of Islam, whereas French prisons discourage it and thereby sow the seeds of extremism. The policy implications of these ironic findings are examined in detail.

Exploring the first purpose-built prison community of its kind, the HMP Dovegate Therapeutic Community, this book provides the most comprehensive coverage of this research to date, following the progress of individual prisoners' through therapy and highlighting the key essentials for prisoners to address their motivations and criminal behaviour.

John Irwin writes about prisons from an unusual academic perspective. Before receiving a Ph.D. in sociology, he served five years in a California state penitentiary for armed robbery. This is his sixth book on imprisonment a " an ethnography of prisoners who have served more than twenty years in a California correctional institution. The purpose of the book is to take issue with the conventional wisdom on homicide, societya (TM)s purposes of imprisonment, and offendersa (TM) reformability. Through the lifersa (TM) stories, he reveals what happens to prisoners serving very long sentences in correctional facilities and what this should tell us about effective sentencing policy.

The growth of Islam both worldwide and particularly in the United States is especially notable among African-American inmates incarcerated in American state and federal penitentiaries. This growth poses a powerful challenge to American penal philosophy, structured on the ideal of rehabilitating offenders through penance and appropriate penal measures. Islam in American Prisons argues that prisoners converting to Islam seek an alternative form of redemption, one that poses a powerful epistemological as well as ideological challenge to American penology. Meanwhile, following the events of 9/11, some prison inmates have converted to radical anti-Western Islam and have become sympathetic to the goals and tactics of the Al-Qa'ida organization. This new study examines this multifaceted phenomenon and makes a powerful argument for the objective examination of the rehabilitative potentials of faith-based organizations in prisons, including the faith of those who convert to Islam.