'A Perfect Storm'

An Ethnography of a Prison Crisis

von Oscar O'Mara

218 Seiten, Hardcover

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

This ethnography of an English adult male prison explores a polycrisis of violence, self-harm, overcrowding, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Bourdieu's field theory, it uniquely highlights the complex interplay of policy, people, and practices to reveal how prisons exacerbate social inequality. The book uncovers paradoxes between prison's stated aims of safety, security, and (re)habilitation and their adverse realities, including the harms to prisoners' reintegration upon release. The prison operates as 'a perfect storm' of mutually reinforcing conditions that reproduce harmful outcomes. The book contends that the real crisis isn't that prisons fail, it's that we continue to believe they're meant to succeed.

• Themen: Gesellschaft und Sozialwissenschaften Soziale Dienste und Sozialwesen, Kriminologie Verbrechen und Kriminologie (Kriminalistik) Sanktionsforschung (Pönologie) und Strafen
• ISBN: 9781529253146
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 25.08.2026
• Größe: 239 x 162 mm
• Verlag: Bristol University Press