Terminal Liminality, Life Imprisonment and the Paroled Body

Abstract

Based on an in-depth analysis of parole board hearings in Israel concerning life sentence prisoners who are old or severely ill, we argue that, rather than opening a window onto new beginnings, parole hearings place applicants in a state of terminal liminality that marks a transition from life into death. We uncover how terminal liminality entails constructing a broken paroled body before the parole board, where matters of life and death are performed, detailed, and contextualized. We further lay out a taxonomy to discuss applicants’ negotiation of terminal liminality through fatalism, resilience, resistance and hope, uncovering how they navigate penal and biological ‘clocks’. The performance of the broken paroled body at the back-end of the criminal justice system is revelatory of the punitiveness of the penal system towards the ageing prison population.