This book explores the identity of Texas as a state with a large and severe penal system. It does so by assessing the narratives at work in Texas museums and tourist sites associated with prisons and punishment. In such cultural institutions, complex narratives are presented, which show celebratory stories of Texan toughness in the penal sphere, as well as poignant stories about the witnessing of executions, comical stories that normalize the harsher aspects of Texan punishment, and presentations about prison officers who have lost their lives in the war on crime. In analysing these...

This book explores the idea of the prison boundary, identifying where it is located, which processes and performances help construct and animate it, and who takes part in them. Although the relationship between prison and non-prison has garnered academic interest from various disciplines in the last decade, the cultural performance of the boundary has been largely ignored. This book adds to the field by exploring the complexity of the material and symbolic connections that exist between society and carceral space.
Drawing on a range of cultural examples including governmental legislation,...

Howard's influential book The State of the Prisons resulted from his experiences, provoking debate among prison reformers and academics worldwide.Adopting the contemporary methods of prison tourism research, the author follows in Howard's footsteps.

This book examines the lives of the sentenced to argue that 'sentencing' should be re-conceived to consider the human perspective.

This book draws on historical and cross-disciplinary studies to critically examine penal practices in Scandinavia. The Nordic countries are often hailed by international observers as 'model societies', with egalitarian welfare policies, low rates of poverty, humane social policies and human rights oriented internal agendas. This book, however, paints a much more nuanced picture of the welfare policies, ideologies and social control in strong centralistic states. Based on extensive new empirical data, leading Nordic and international scholars discuss the relationship between prison conditions...

This book provides an assessment of contemporary international knowledge about the experiences of life after release from prison. For over 100 years people leaving prison have been supervised by probation services, but little has been written about how those who are supervised experience this process, or how this process influences experiences post-release. Research suggests that the success or failure of supervision in terms of reoffending may be related to how it is experienced, but little has been written about how supervision interacts with these experiences. Despite this lack of grounded...

This edited collection speaks to and expands on existing debates around incarceration. Edited by two human geographers, and positioned within a criminological context, this original collection draws together essays by geographers and criminologists with a keen interest in carceral studies.

This book examines the nature of relations between penal reform campaigners, journalists and policymakers at the crime-media nexus. While penal reformers have traditionally relied on the language of humanitarianism to influence the direction of policy, there remains an array of political and cultural sticking points.