The death of a child in penal custody is an infrequent, but particularly tragic, event. In seeking to explain such events, the tendency has been to focus on individual pathology or vulnerability. This article begins from the premise that in order to better understand child deaths in penal custody, it is necessary to move beyond such explanations and consider the wider systematic, cultural, operational, and policy issues. It contributes to the debate by exploring the specific ‘pains of child imprisonment’ as narrated by teenage boys (aged 15–17 years) in an English young offender institution (YOI). It is argued that, trapped in ‘kidulthood’, the dual status of child prisoners poses experiential, conceptual, and practical complexities, but it also produces pains, losses, and burdens that are unique to childhood.

Framed by the limited and now dated ethnographic research on the prison drug economy, this article offers new theoretical and empirical insights into how drugs challenge the social order in prisons in England and Wales. It draws on significant original and rigorous ethnographic research to argue that the ‘era of hard drugs’ has been superseded by an ‘era of new psychoactive drugs’, redefining social relations, transforming the prison illicit economy, producing new forms of prison victimization and generating far greater economic power and status for suppliers. These changes represent the complex interplay and compounding effects of broader shifts in political economy, technological advances, organized crime, prison governance and the declining legitimacy and moral performance of English and Welsh prisons.

Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative research conducted across four prisons in England and Wales, this chapter revisits Sykes’ conceptualization of the “deprivation of material goods and services.” The chapter explores how such deprivation became more pronounced and acute over the course of the last decade (2011 onwards), and how prisoners adapted in ways that threatened rather than enhanced inmate solidarity. It analyzes how the illicit prison economy flourished and evolved, with economic imperatives serving to redefine forms of prisoner leadership, the “argot roles,” and the central tenants of the “inmate code.” The chapter argues that prisoner culture mirrors and reinforces the individualized nature of penal power with the effect that accessing material goods is not just a question of comfort, survival, or meaningful sentence progression, but represents crucial identity work. Status rests with those who can demonstrate their “material machismo” and “carceral capital” in ways that extend beyond the ability and willingness to use physical force when required to include the demonstrable ability to acquire material goods, consumer status symbols, and pecuniary advantage. Ultimately, it is argued that the evolving nature of the nature, dynamics, and culture of the prison society demonstrates how dynamic the prison is, and that it is this capacity for change that demands ongoing, careful, and immersive ethnographic research.

The article explores how teenage boys (aged 15-17 years old) in an English young offender institution (YOI) engage in and construct prison violence. Focusing on the relationship between violence and the performance of adolescent prison masculinities, it presents three key findings. First, there are key differences between juvenile and adult prison violence, (behaviour that is framed in terms of being a 'real man' or a 'little boy'). Second, the performance of masculinity is complicated by the striking vulnerability of child prisoners and masks the real problems that all young people experience 'handling jail'. Third, the performance of 'manhood' is an unfinished, negotiated and incomplete work where young people exist in a state of liminality and 'kidulthood,' catapulted into premature adulthood but retaining aspects of their childhood sensibilities and needs. Thus, gendered performances are mediated and constructed in accordance to youth and adulthood.

During the last 30 years, the way in which children give evidence in the criminal justice system in England and Wales has been radically transformed. These reforms have, however, neglected child suspects in the police station. Recent piecemeal reforms to the statutory regime for children in police detention have overlooked a critical stage of the criminal justice process: the police interview. This article critically analyses the policy, practice and law surrounding police questioning of child suspects. It demonstrates that the absence of child-specific guidance when interviewing child suspects is not only out of step with wider reforms, but carries real risks regarding the effective communication and participation of child suspects.