Phil Scraton - The Violence of Incarceration

Western liberal democracies appear to use imprisonment with good conscience, denying the violence which is the ever-present potential of the dehumanisation and demonisation of those incarcerated. Academic writing, while critical of the over-use of imprisonment, the ineffectiveness of imprisonment for reducing crime, and the over-imprisonment of particular social groups, too often uses the muted, rational-sounding language of risk-management, coupling rights with responsibilities, and bringing about change. This volume brings together rigorously researched examples of the violence of incarceration, showing that this is present in prisons, in immigration detention centres, and in childrens institutions, and that it is present in different countries as well as across different forms of detention. The book challenges readers to look behind the penal language and see the violence and humiliation involved in imprisonment. It should be essential reading for academics, policy-makers, and practitioners concerned with detention in its many forms and many settings.

Western governments boast about the rule of law and the duty of care governing the treatment of those men, women and children who are incarcerated. But the evidence of this carefully researched book is that from little known provincial asylums, to out of the way childrens detention centres, to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the experience of confinement still brutalises those who suffer it, and indeed, those we employ to manage it. The evidence presented here suggests that in many cases western governments are not in the least embarrassed that the current punitive drift, legitimated by the war on terror, is narrowing definitions of what would have once been thought of as the inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners. The knock-on effect of this on routine institutional practices across the board is already discernible in America and among its allies. I can think of no better text for drawing attention to this punitive drift. It makes a compelling case against the escalating use of imprisonment, speaking on behalf of those who are trapped in an ever expanding network of brutal disciplinary institutions, the purpose of which is to reproduce (and reinforce) the inequalities of power along gender, ethnic and class lines that continue to characterise modern societies.

An important collection based on detailed case studies across a number of jurisdictions by leading prison researchers. All, in various ways, trace the connections between the exceptional forms of violence, terror, torture and abuse that have publicly surfaced in what Judith Butler calls the new war prison and the routine and usually hidden practices of the normal domestic prison or detention centre. Powerful stuff.

Incarceration is pointless, and so these voices tell usvoices much needed in the midst of global carceral insanity. Hear these voices please!

The Violence of Incarceration pulls together many of the pressing and distressing issues that link criminal justice and the global war on terror. From California to Ireland to the US airbase at Bagram, patterns of physical brutality and psychological cruelty repeat and reproduce like political fractals spinning off racism, misogyny and torture. With human rights and human dignity as its magnetic north, this powerful book helps map the often hidden and forgotten terrain of state repression.

This timely text addresses the exponential growth of imprisonment and carceral violence, across the globe. Written and edited by internationally noted critical scholars, these essays map the political utility of imprisonment, and the consequent disregard for human rights and the attendant violence of repressive prison regimes. The trends elucidated serve as a warning to us all.

First published 2009
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

The violence of incarceration / edited by Phil Scraton and Jude McCulloch.
p. cm.(Routledge advances in criminology ; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-415-96313-8 (hbk)
ISBN-10: 0-415-96313-3 (hbk)
ISBN-13: 978-0-203-89291-6 (ebk)
ISBN-10: 0-203-89291-7 (ebk)
1. Prison violence. I. Scraton, Phil. II. McCulloch, Jude.
HV9025.V56 2008
365'.641dc22
2008005150

ISBN10: 0-415-96313-3 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-89291-7 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-96313-8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-89291-6 (ebk)

ISBN 0-203-89291-7 Master e-book ISBN

The Violence of Incarceration was conceived in 2005 during Phil Scratons visiting scholarship at Monash University, Melbourne. Following a public lecture at the Trades Hall, the home of struggle and resistance in the City, on the impunity of the powerful, we agreed on plans for two distinct but related projects. The first was to approach the international journal, Social Justice, with a proposal for a special issue on Deaths in Custody and Detention. The second was to contact a range of authors whose critical work on incarceration placed violence, interpersonal and institutionalised, at the centre of their analyses. The special issue was published in 2006 as