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Disavowing ‘the’ Prison

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Carceral Spatiality

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology ((PSIPP))

Abstract

This chapter confronts the idea of ‘the’ prison, that is, prison as a fixed entity. However hard we, that is, prison scholars including ourselves, seek to deconstruct and critique specific aspects of confinement, there is a tendency to slip into a default position that envisions the prison as something given and pre-understood. When it comes to prison our imagination seems to clog up. It is the political solution to its own failure, and the preferred metaphor for its own representation.

We are grateful to Editor Anna Schliehe for useful comments and insights that informed the final drafting of this chapter, though its limitations remain the responsibility of the authors.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This contrasts with Wacquant’s (2001) analysis of the symbiosis of ‘ghetto’ and prison, where the (racialised) poor are circulated back and forth through these. Wacquant emphasises the structures of racism and poor control underlying circulation between neighbourhood and institution, thus analytically separating the two as sites. The question of whether different sites of confinement – prisons, ghettos, re-education camps – are best understood as homologous or part of a continuous system is raised by Jefferson et al. (in review) as part of a proposed special issue on confinement and experiences of stuckness.

  2. 2.

    Jefferson (2014b, 249) argues that ‘instead of thinking about legitimacy through the relatively static terms of power holders and audiences – implying possession and imposition’ that it might be more fruitful to think of legitimacy ‘as produced, mediated, and diffusely distributed and not as something to be held or possessed, or intrinsic to a position or a status’. This reorientation echoes the work of Finn Stepputat (2013) on the concept of ‘sovereign practice’ where sovereign power is analysed not with reference to its holders or subjects but through its diverse and variegated forms approached via an ethnographic sensitivity.

  3. 3.

    See Kjær and Kinnerup (2002) for a useful discussion of these (con)fusions.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland

    Sarah Armstrong

  2. DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture, Borgergade, Denmark

    Andrew M. Jefferson

Authors
  1. Sarah Armstrong
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  2. Andrew M. Jefferson
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Correspondence to Sarah Armstrong .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham , Birmingham, United Kingdom

    Dominique Moran

  2. Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

    Anna K. Schliehe

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Armstrong, S., Jefferson, A.M. (2017). Disavowing ‘the’ Prison. In: Moran, D., Schliehe, A. (eds) Carceral Spatiality. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56057-5_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56057-5_9

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-56056-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56057-5

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