Prisons and Punishment

The Short Guide to Criminal Justice provides a comprehensive, yet concise, introduction to the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom. It includes many student-friendly features such as case study boxes, tables showing key facts and figures and links to data sources and further reading.

Focusing on one of the most interesting developments in UK prisons over the past 10 years, this book examines the early history of the Prison Radio Association and the formation of the first national radio station for prisoners. It shows how a relatively small-scale media activism came to be an intrinsic part of prison culture.

Prison suicides reached a record high in 2016 in England and Wales. Provides the first detailed case study of the investigations that follow prison suicides with findings relevant at a global level.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Using case studies and a strengths-based approach Best puts forward a new recovery and reintegration model for substance users and offenders leaving prison which emphasizes the importance of long-term recovery and the role that communities and peers play in the process.

The first authoritative volume to look back on the last 50 years of The Open University providing higher education to those in prison, this unique book gives voice to ex-prisoners whose lives have been transformed by the education they received, offering vivid personal testimonies, reflective vignettes and academic analysis of education in prison.

As marketisation and privatisation reshape the criminal justice system, this illuminating overview sets out their causes, scale and impacts.

With case studies and economic, sociological and criminological perspectives, leading academics consider the evolving roles of public, private and voluntary sectors and possible future reforms.

This timely and unique contribution brings together leading scholars from criminology and theology to challenge criminal justice orthodoxy. They question the dominance of retributive punishment, and consider alternatives which draw on Christian ideas of hope, mercy and restoration.

From Margaret Thatcher’s first government to austerity politics, Ian Cummins traces changing attitudes to imprisonment and the social state. With fresh insights and critical thinking, he demonstrates how increasingly punitive approaches to crime and welfare have shaped the neoliberal economy and created stigma around those living in poverty.

Drawing on research from the Women, Family, Crime and Justice research network, this collection sheds new light on the experiences of women and families who encounter the UK criminal justice system. Contributions demonstrate how these groups are often ignored, oppressed and victimised, and offer insights and practical recommendations for change.

Male prisons can be dangerous places with a climate of distrust, but can long-term prisoners be given the space to reflect and grow ? This ground-breaking study found that engaging prisoners in philosophy education enabled them to think about some of the ‘big’ questions in life and as a result to see themselves and others differently.

We live in a pre-crime society where technological strategies and techniques are employed to achieve hyper-securitization. Exploring theories, technologies and institutional practices, this pioneering book explains how the pre-crime society operates in the ‘ultramodern’ age and proposes new directions in crime control policy.

This book discusses the failings of the prison system in many countries and offers positive pointers for the future. It shows the way forward will be through initiatives such as Justice Reinvestment and in the Human Development model.