The outside and inside in norwegian and english prisons

Abstract

This article is based on our first experiences visiting prisons, and being surprised by the ways in which the inside and outside often seemed indistinct. One of our narratives comes from England, the other from Norway. Our analysis emerges from a recognition that, despite visiting prisons for different research projects in different countries, our experiences in prison spaces shared striking similarities. We had each expected prisons to have clear and demarcated boundaries between inside and outside, consistent with Goffman's binary distinctions in the total institution model. However, this model was not a good fit with our view of prisons, since it did not capture the importance of indistinction. The inside and outside were often entangled and fused with one another, having both distinctions and indistinctions simultaneously. The seemingly incompatible juxtapositions between inside and outside were consistent with the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia, as a better fit with our ideas. Our observations improve our understanding of confinement as a dynamic and often contradictory state of betweenness. After exploring our personal narratives from visiting prisons, some theoretical implications of the concept of heterotopia within institutional research are discussed and contrasted to that of total institution.

The production of bedspace: prison privatization and abstract space

“…First, the space at stake in prison privatization debates is most often represented as homogeneous. With notable exceptions (e.g., Bates, 1998;Taylor and Cooper, 2008), arguments for and against prison privatization are seldom grounded in experiences or outcomes in specific places. Second, the instrumentality of prison space is seldom questioned by either side of the debate.…”

“…This challenges the generally a-spatial terms of prison privatization debates, and the nondialectical epistemology of bedspace in crucial ways. Carceral geographies consistently challenge the inside/outside binarism of the "total institution" thesis (Baer and Ravneberg, 2008), for example, creating a more spatially robust accounting of the carceral context in which the prison is situated. They have often done so by accounting for the local, regional, and international locations of particular prisons (Baer and Ravneberg, 2008;Bonds, 2012;Mitchelson, 2011Mitchelson, , 2012.…”

“…Carceral geographies consistently challenge the inside/outside binarism of the "total institution" thesis (Baer and Ravneberg, 2008), for example, creating a more spatially robust accounting of the carceral context in which the prison is situated. They have often done so by accounting for the local, regional, and international locations of particular prisons (Baer and Ravneberg, 2008;Bonds, 2012;Mitchelson, 2011Mitchelson, , 2012. They have also done so by analyzing the economic and social relationality through which prisons are produced, with particular attention to racialization (Bonds, 2013;Che, 2005;Gilmore, 2007;McKittrick, 2012).…”

Carceral circuitry

“…Although carceral spaces are often vertically extensive and voluminous (Turner and Peters, 2016), for example, we acknowledge that circuits may invite a rather flat understanding of carceral space. Circuits are also closed systems, whereas carceral systems are not only infusing social systems in the ways we have described, but are also becoming infused by them in countless ways (Baer and Ravneberg, 2008), from private acts of domestic and family life performed in carceral spaces (Comfort, 2002) have so rattled British government authorities.Nevertheless, the ideas developed in this paper have broad resonance. It is through following and visualizing the connections that undergird carceral spaces that geographers are in an unrivalled position to offer insights into carceral systems not just within human geography, but in conversation with prison studies, criminology, penology and the sociology of crime.…”

Introduction: Criminality and carcerality across boundaries

“…In asking which way to turn next with the sub-discipline, this issue draws upon work carried out in its "emergence" surrounding the complex and often blurred relationship between prison and society, exploring carcerality across boundaries (Baer and Ravneberg, 2008;Gilmore, 2007;Loyd et al, 2009;Pallot, 2005;Vergara, 1995;Wacquant, 2000Wacquant, , 2001aWacquant, , b, 2009). However, in doing so, this issue also begins to pave the way for future intentions.…”