Inside the Belly of the Penal Beast: Understanding the Experience of Imprisonment

Abstract

One of the striking characteristics of much 'big picture' penal scholarship is that it stops at the gates of the prison, or breaches its surface somewhat barely or briefly. This article proposes that such work could be advanced and made more compelling if its insights were married with -and modified through -those provided by empirical and ethnographic analyses of the practice and experience of penal power. It then sets out a framework which would enable this form of engagement and analysis, first providing an account of the development of the main components of the framework, before elaborating in more detail how its constituent parts -depth, weight, tightness, and breadth -might be conceptualised. It concludes by offering some reflections on the practical implications of this agenda for prison researchers. KeywordsPenal theory; prison ethnography; the experience of imprisonment.

Reach and Relevance of Prison Research

“…The situation in Europe, including the UK, is different from the US, with qualitative prison researchers producing new scholarship. The need for in-depth, longitudinal and qualitative prison research -measuring the 'quality of prison life' in different prisons within one country (Liebling 2004), comparing prison conditions and regime aspects in several jurisdictions (Pratt 2008a(Pratt , 2008bPratt and Eriksson 2013), or re-assessing the contemporary 'pains of imprisonment' including the 'depth', 'weight', 'tightness' and 'breadth' of imprisonment (Crewe 2011(Crewe , 2015 -has been argued by many. New trends have developed, including a rapid growth of the use of ethnographic and narrative methodology, and a growing interest in the emotive aspect of (ethnographic) prison research (see Jewkes 2012Jewkes , 2014Liebling 1999;Scheirs and Nuytiens 2013).…”

The Pains of Jail Imprisonment: Experiences at The Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre

“…I will provide a brief overview of the 'punitive turn' and 'new penology' frameworks, before commenting on the limitations of such theorizations. As previous scholars have pointed out, empirical research examining punishment as it 'plays out' can complement the 'blind spots' of macro accounts (Crewe 2015;Sexton 2015). Several scholars have lamented the demise of such research; however, I hope to paint a more optimistic picture of the state of prison research.…”

“…Sociologists and criminologists have spent much time analyzing current trends in the realm of punishment and social control. What Crewe (2015) dubs "big picture penal scholarship" has sought to explain how and why punishment has changed in the contemporary context. While offering different explanations, theorists generally agree that a shift has occurred in English-speaking countries, marked by a retreat from rehabilitative philosophies and the embrace of punitive measures and actuarial justice (Bottoms 1995;Garland 2000Garland , 2001Pratt 2000Pratt , 2007Simon 1992, 1994).…”

“…While offering different explanations, theorists generally agree that a shift has occurred in English-speaking countries, marked by a retreat from rehabilitative philosophies and the embrace of punitive measures and actuarial justice (Bottoms 1995;Garland 2000Garland , 2001Pratt 2000Pratt , 2007Simon 1992, 1994). While such accounts are useful for understanding broad shifts in penal policy, some authors argue that the booming literature on macro-level trends has corresponded with a decline in qualitative prison research (Simon 2000;Wacquant 2002;Reiter 2014;Tubex 2015;Crewe 2015). As Crewe (2015: 50) writes, "one of the striking characteristics of much of this 'big picture' penal scholarship is that it stops at the gates of the prison, or breaches its surface somewhat barely or briefly."…”

“…Even when partial information regarding institutional conditions and practices can be gleaned from policy documents and government reports, the nature of how punishment is experienced by prisoners is not self-evident. Elements of incarceration can be experienced in ways that stray from the official objectives of policymakers and legal actors (Griffin 2006;Crewe 2015), while the nature of punishment can extend beyond the law's formal intent (Sykes 1958).…”