Desistance research has pushed criminologists to develop a nuanced conceptual account of criminal identity and human agency. However, these tools have mostly not been used to consider identity changes among long-sentenced prisoners, despite the growing preponderance of long-term imprisonment in England and Wales. As a result of this, desistance theory has not been used to evaluate the administration of indeterminate sentences, meaning that practitioners may be missing out on some of the insights that it can generate. This qualitative study begins to fill that gap, using a phenomenological analysis of eighteen in-depth semi-structured interviews with life- sentenced prisoners at a single prison in England, all of whom had been convicted of murder. It argues that most eventually attempt conscious projects of personal change during imprisonment; second, that many frame change in terms which are not consistent with the official discourses of risk reduction (which govern their progression through the sentence); and third, that how they themselves conceive and pursue personal change is affected by their position in the sentence and the life course, and also by the specific nature and circumstances of their index offences. The analysis classifies four different styles of agency found in the sample: ‘defensive’ and ‘fractured’ agents were unwilling or unable to accept responsibility for the offence, and were consequently in penal ‘dead ends’; while ‘corrective’ and ‘redemptive’ agents had encountered ‘turning points’, in that they accepted responsibility, albeit in different ways. The analysis describes each group’s characteristic ways of describing the offence and their part in it. It also describes their attitudes to prison social life in general, and to rehabilitative intervention in particular. The study as a whole suggests that much of the personal change which lifers themselves frame as significant happens outside rehabilitative interventions, and may be invisible to key prison staff. This raises important questions about whether prisons and prisoners think about rehabilitation in the same way, with consequences for the legitimacy of penal power.

Recent studies of long-term imprisonment describe a largely invariant pattern of prisoner adaptation. Using data from a qualitative study of men serving life sentences in England, I argue that adaptation may in fact vary more than these studies imply both because of the prisoner’s age when sentenced and because of the circumstances of particular offences. Participants’ engagement with the prison’s rehabilitative ‘offer’ depended on how the sentence affected their life course and what they understood to be the moral ramifications of the offence. These findings refine understanding of adaptation and suggest that a renewed focus on moral reflexivity may bear fruit in future prison research. [This preprint is the author's original version of an article that has been accepted by the British Journal of Criminology, published by Oxford University Press on 4 May 2020]

Child abuse in youth custody in England and Wales is receiving an unprecedented degree of official attention. Historic allegations of abuse by staff in custodial institutions which held children are now being heard by the courts and by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), and some criminal trials have resulted in convictions. A persistent question prompted by these investigations is that of why the victims of custodial child abuse were for so long denied recognition as such, or any form of redress. Drawing on original documentary research, this article aims to explain why and how state authorities in England and Wales failed to recognise the victimisation of children held in penal institutions between 1960 and 1990, and argues that this failure constitutes a disavowal of the state’s responsibility. We show that the victims of custodial child abuse were the victims of state crimes by omission, because the state failed to recognise or to uphold a duty of care. We argue further that this was possible because the occupational cultures and custodial practices of penal institutions failed to recognise the structural and agentic vulnerabilities of children. Adult staff were granted enormous discretionary power which entitled them to act (and to define their actions) without effective constraint. These findings, we suggest, have implications for how custodial institutions for children should think about the kinds of abuse which are manifest today.

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Recent studies of long-term imprisonment describe a largely invariant pattern of prisoner adaptation. Using data from a qualitative study of men serving life sentences in England, I argue that adaptation may in fact vary more than these studies imply both because of the prisoner’s age when sentenced and because of the circumstances of particular offences. Participants’ engagement with the prison’s rehabilitative ‘offer’ depended on how the sentence affected their life course and what they understood to be the moral ramifications of the offence. These findings refine understanding of adaptation and suggest that a renewed focus on moral reflexivity may bear fruit in future prison research.