Prisons, Punishment and the Pursuit of Security [Paperback]

Drawing on research in men's long-term, maximum-security prisons, this book examines three interconnected problems: the tendency of the prison to obscure other social problems and conceal its own failings, the pursuit of greater levels of human security through repressive and violent means and the persistence of the belief in the problem of 'evil'.Demythologising the Prison and its Uses The Growing Hegemony of Imprisonment Establishing Long-Term, Maximum-Security Imprisonment in England A State of Security in Maxmimum-Security Prisons Long-Term, Maximum-Security Punishment Constituting Security in the Penal and Social Realms Duplicity, Violent Crime of Criminal 'Justice' and the Problem with Punishment Making the Unthinkable Thinkable

It is a research monograph that will undoubtedly make an enduring contribution to prison scholarship and which one could whole-heartedly recommend to students, anticipating that it will challenge and inspire them. Drake's great achievement is in shining light on the very 'deepest' end of the penal estate at a time when security has risen to a level of prominence that eclipses every other consideration, including what it means to be human. - British Journal of Criminology

Prisons, Punishment and the Pursuit of Security is a remarkable achievement. Confidently embracing an eclectic mix of the most exciting and influential scholarship of recent years, it is also a bold, brave and affecting empirical study [...] With this study of all five men's maximum-security prisons in England, Deborah Drake has given us a beautifully written, impressively detailed and authoritative yet immensely readable book, which will undoubtedly make an enduring contribution to prison scholarship. Prisons, Punishment and the Pursuit of Security should reassure all those who have expressed concerns about the health of prison ethnography that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. This book already feels like a 'classic'. -lãž