NCJ Number
211241
Editor(s)
Alison Liebling,
Shadd Maruna
Date Published
2005
Length
512 pages
Annotation
Based on papers presented at the International Symposium on the Effects of Imprisonment, held April 14-15, 2004, as a Cropwood Conference at the University of Cambridge, this book's chapters consider the harms of imprisonment, the features of prison life, how older inmates cope with prison life, and transformation of imprisonment effects.
Abstract
Five chapters on the harms of imprisonment consider perspectives of a diversity of ex-inmates on their prison experience, the implications for prison effects of contemporary psychology's focus on context as influential in molding behavior, harms related to the features of contemporary prisons, the effects of "supermax" custody, and a comparison of confinement regimes for women inmates in California and the United Kingdom. Six chapters address the characteristics of inmate cultures that stem from inmates' efforts to cope with prison life, with attention to inmate codes, inmate suicide, the experience of young adults shortly after entering prison, coping mechanisms in Israeli prisons, and forms of violence in Belgian prisons. The two chapters on coping among older inmates considers their distinctive coping challenges in prison, including the psychological impact of a life sentence. Three chapters on transforming the effects of prison address the effects on correctional officers of prison work, the impact of "top-down" regulations for prison management in stifling innovation in the British prison system, and the effects of imprisonment on the domestic partners and children of inmates. The "Afterword" of the book discusses the "reinventing" of prisons to make them conducive to positive inmate behavioral and attitudinal change. Chapter notes and references and a subject index