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What does a good prison look like? More than eleven million people are currently locked up in prisons across the world, but does that mean that prison actually works? The answer usually depends on what people believe and feel about crime, punishment and what happens inside prisons. The deep social and personal impact of prisons demands that we try to search for a better understanding of the evidence and ideas that have made prisons so ubiquitous.
Hindpal Singh Bhui, with 25 years’ experience of visiting and working in prisons worldwide, argues that we need to look at who is sent there and why, to disentangle reality from ideology and myth. Introducing the competing histories of prisons and allowing the voices of prisoners, prison staff and victims to be heard, he asks whether there is a better way to achieve what society wants from its prisons.
"A masterful introduction to the complexity of our prisons for anyone who has had more than a passing thought about what happens beyond the walls." The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice
"This highly engaging, accessible and well-researched book will most likely be of interest to probation practitioners and students with an interest in prison as well as a general reader who wants to know more about the hidden and all too often taken-for-granted social institution that is imprisonment." Jake Phillips, Probation Journal
1. A Journey into Prisons
2. A Brief History of Imprisonment in the West
3. The Emergence of Prison around the World
4. Mass Incarceration, Race and Crime
5. Do the Crime, Do the Time? Who Are Prisoners?
6. Experiencing Prison
7. Where Next for Prisons?