This book analyses the experiences of prisoners in England & Wales sentenced when relatively young to very long life sentences (with minimum terms of fifteen years or more). Based on a major study, including almost 150 interviews with men and women at various sentence stages and over 300 surveys, it explores the ways in which long-term prisoners respond to their convictions, adapt to the various challenges that they encounter and re-construct their lives within and beyond the prison. Focussing on such matters as personal identity, relationships with family and friends, and the management of time, the book argues that long-term imprisonment entails a profound confrontation with the self. It provides detailed insight into how such prisoners deal with the everyday burdens of their situation, feelings of injustice, anger and shame, and the need to find some sense of hope, control and meaning in their lives. In doing so, it exposes the nature and consequences of the life-changing terms
Trade Review“The book offers a valuable and important contribution to sociological literature on long-term and life imprisonment. … The book presents honest and authentic accounts to reconsider the challenging implications of the topics explored. It contributes to social, criminological and geographical studies of incarceration and life course literature and will be of great interest to readers across these fields.” (Jayne Price, The British Journal of Criminology, April 21, 2020)
Table of ContentsChapter One ..............................................................................................................................................Introduction...............................................................................................................................The abolition of capital punishment and the growth of the long life sentence ...............................The ‘tariff’ system for life-sentenced prisoners ................................................................................The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Schedule 21).....................................................................................The up-tariffing of ‘knife homicides’ and the rise of ‘joint enterprise’ .............................................Defining ‘long-term’ imprisonment...................................................................................................Understanding long-term imprisonment ..........................................................................................The impact of long-term imprisonment ............................................................................................Long-term imprisonment from young adulthood .............................................................................
Chapter Two ..............................................................................................................................................Methods ....................................................................................................................................Research design .................................................................................................................................Access ................................................................................................................................................Ethics..................................................................................................................................................Interviews ..........................................................................................................................................Interview sample ..........................................................................................................................Surveys............................................................................................................................................... Development of the survey instrument .......................................................................................Conducting team research ................................................................................................................The research process .........................................................................................................................Interviewing women .....................................................................................................................Analysis ..............................................................................................................................................Interview analysis .........................................................................................................................Survey analysis..............................................................................................................................Methodological issues .......................................................................................................................
Chapter Three............................................................................................................................................Pen portraits .............................................................................................................................. Seb, 20s, early-stage ..........................................................................................................................Gail, late-stage ...................................................................................................................................Campbell, 30s, mid-stage ..................................................................................................................Deena, 20s, mid-stage .......................................................................................................................Richard, 50s, post-tariff .....................................................................................................................Mahmood, 30s, mid-stage.................................................................................................................
Chapter Four..............................................................................................................................................The early years ......................................................................................................................................Being ‘in shock’: acute stress reactions to conviction, sentencing and initial incarceration ............ Post-conviction: the initial pains of long indeterminate sentences.................................................. Existential dislocation and biographical rupture...............................................................................The affective dimensions of long indeterminate sentences ............................................................. Anger.............................................................................................................................................Surviving the early stage....................................................................................................................Suppression ..................................................................................................................................Escape ...........................................................................................................................................‘Jailing’ ..........................................................................................................................................Sublimation ...................................................................................................................................Concluding comments: ‘you just cope; you've got no other choice’ ................................................
Chapter Five...............................................................................................................................................Coping and Adaptation .........................................................................................................................Stasis and survival ..............................................................................................................................‘Coming to terms’ ..............................................................................................................................‘Settling down’ and moving on: precipitating factors ....................................................................... Discourses of adaptation ...................................................................................................................Control ...............................................................................................................................................Hope, meaning and purposeHope, meaning, purpose and coping: faith and educationCoping, faith and educationDoing time, authority and compliance ..............................................................................................Enduring and emergent problems.....................................................................................................Projects and concerns........................................................................................................................Discussion ..........................................................................................................................................
Chapter Six.................................................................................................................................................Social relations ......................................................................................................................................Dislocation of social world – natal and nuclear family......................................................................The rupturing of intimate relationships .......................................................................................Estrangement from family ............................................................................................................Worries about family .........................................................................................................................Impact on family members’ psychological and physical wellbeing.............................................. Impact on family life .....................................................................................................................Repercussions for family ..............................................................................................................Compromised role identities .............................................................................................................Male prisoners as sons .................................................................................................................Women as mothers ......................................................................................................................Dislocation from social world - peers ................................................................................................Reforming a social world in prison ....................................................................................................Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................
Chapter Seven ...........................................................................................................................................Identity and the self ..............................................................................................................................Dislocation from the self ...................................................................................................................Social dislocation and self-identity ....................................................................................................Environmental demands...............................................................................................................Self-reconstruction (i): implications of the offence for identity........................................................Self-reconstruction (ii): making sense of the changing self............................................................... The ethical self ............................................................................................................................Post-traumatic growth and the ‘stronger, better self’ ................................................................. The more mature self ...................................................................................................................Finding the ‘real me’: The developed authentic self ........................................................................
Chapter Eight.............................................................................................................................................Time and place ......................................................................................................................................Temporal vertigo ...............................................................................................................................Living ‘day-by-day’ .............................................................................................................................Time strategies ..................................................................................................................................The experience of time ...................................................................................................................... The prison as a non-place ..................................................................................................................
Time strategies II ...............................................................................................................................Contextual maturity...........................................................................................................................Time and release................................................................................................................................Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................
Chapter Nine .............................................................................................................................................Discussion ..............................................................................................................................................
