Research News

Stopping them ‘upping sticks and moving somewhere else’ – restrictions on UK released prisoners’ mobility

/ carceralgeography

Speaking after a recent Commons evidence hearing, UK Justice Secretary Chris Grayling stated his intention to ban released prisoners from moving around the country when they leave jail to ensure they complete their rehabilitation programmes. As reported in The Guardian today, the justice secretary said tougher conditions would be imposed on released prisoners from short sentences so that they could not “move 200 miles up the road for no reason”.

The move was justified by Grayling by describing the current situation as “quite chaotic”, and implying that newly released prisoners’ mobility around the country fuels high reoffending rates. “I do not think that anybody who has come out of prison and is subject to a supervision arrangement should be free to up sticks and move somewhere else”.

Grayling’s words and his intention to restict the movement of released prisoners extend the debate over prisoner mobility and the reach of the carceral system beyond the prison walls. The theme of mobility and punishment has been prevalent within carceral geography for some time, with Nick Gill’s 2009 paper on governmental mobility and the UK asylum estate, and Dominique Moran, Laura Piacentini and Judith Pallot’s 2012 paper on disciplined, or forced mobility, in the Russian prison system.  These papers draw attention to the theorisation of mobility and power, and specifically, the consideration of mobility as an expression of power, in that the forced mobility of detained migrants and prisoners shapes the experience of confinement on the part of these groups. In a forthcoming book chapter focusing on electronic monitoring systems used to track former inmates and detainees beyond the spaces of prison, Gill further discusses mobilities operating as ‘vehicle’ to alternatively deny or deliver punishment vis-à-vis  liberty.

The suggestion by Grayling that prisoners’ mobility be restricted after release in order that they complete rehabilitation programmes echoes these arguments. On the one hand, the extension of spatial fixity beyond the prison wall suggests that the prisoner’s own home and community becomes something of a ‘transcarceral’ space of reconfinement, in which the regime of the prison takes form through a respatialised notion of the carceral. On the other, the apparently essential link between this transcarceral spatial fixity and the ‘betterment’ of rehabilitation sees spatial and social mobility in conflict one with the other. In order to realise the benefits of rehabilitation, in terms of reduced reoffending and improved social mobility, the prisoner must sacrifice physical mobility and the self-determination of location afforded to free citizens.

Although Graylings recent words were couched in concerns over how the UK’s ‘payment by results’ policy on reducing reoffending would operate in practice, his remarks over former prisoner mobility suggest that ‘punitive mobility’ and the extension of the carceral beyond the space of the prison are themes which remain pertinent to the UK context, and which merit further investigation by carceral geographers.

Carceral ‘Afterlives’ – Punta Carretas Prison-Mall

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Afterlives of ConfinementA new book by Susana Draper, assistant professor of comparative literature at Princeton University, uses the phenomenon of the “opening” of prisons to begin a dialogue on conceptualizations of democracy and freedom in post-dictatorship Latin America. Focusing on the Southern Cone nations of Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina, she examines key works in architecture, film and literature to reveal the veiled continuity of dictatorial power structures in ensuing consumer cultures.

For carceral geographers, her book has particular appeal for its discussion of Punta Carretas prison, in Montevideo, opened in 1910 as the exemplar of model prison architecture in Uruguay, and copied from the 1898 Fresnes prison in France. Designed in the ‘telephone pole’ style, its aim was to rehabilitate individuals through humanitarian punishment, and its opening, which coincided with the abolition of the death penalty, was characteristic of the Uruguayan state’s modernization plans.

However, by the 1930s Punta Carretas was holding political prisoners, becoming by the 1970s Uruguay’s most important centre of confinement for politicals, until a mass escape in 1971 saw the prison nearly emptied, and the remaining prisoners moved to the new military Libertad Penitentiary. Post-1970s, the prison held mainstream prisoners, and eventually it was slated for closure, a decision initially triggered by rising local property values, but then delayed by the recognition that Punta Carretas was a national site of cultural heritage, which should be preserved. However, the cost of the preservation of the building proved too high for the then post-dictatorship state, and a decision was taken to preserve the building, but to put it to commercial use.

The prison was converted into a shopping mall in 1994, as part of a larger process which Draper describes as a means to ‘envision the country of the future – that is, the country of consumer services’ (Draper 2012, 23). In converting the prison,  a conscious effort was made to selectively demolish and preserve certain features, in an effort to “preserve the spirit of the prison, but in a way in which this ‘preservation’ would not be an obstacle to developing its new function” (architect Estela Porada, cited in Draper 2012, 48). Draper draws particular attention to this notion of the ‘spirit’ of the prison, suggesting that the spirit is connected to ‘leaving behind the prison in architectural form without bringing forth the painful, past spectres of this site’ (ibid 49).

Discussing the actual space of the prison-mall, Draper describes the preserved relics of the prison – the facade, the gateway through which prisoners were previously led to their cells, the walkways on former prison landings, and the former cells which now contain shops, food courts and entertainment complexes. She particularly focuses on the tensions in the building between the inside and outside of the mall, specific relics of the prison which appear disconnected from the mall itself, and the effect of the disguised and fetishised remnants of the prison within the colourful mall.

For carceral geographers, Draper’s book, which also analyses the literary afterlives of Punta Carretas (writings on the prison itself and its transformation) offers an intriguing reading of this site, weaving together ideas of spirits and spectres, idioms and residues, evocation and translation, and the relationship between the unique and the universal.  Read alongside other work on the conversion of prison sites, emerging from geography and from tourism and heritage studies, this work offers a highly nuanced and contextualised reading of Punta Carretas and its transformation, embedded within a wider set of transformations of the Uruguayan state.

Draper, S (2012) Afterlives of Confinement: Spatial Transitions in Postdictatorship Latin America, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, USA.

New papers in carceral geography: space, privacy, affect and the carceral habitus

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Over the past few months a number of new papers have emerged which may be of interest to carceral geographers. Written by both geographers and criminologists, they address a range of issues but share a common concern with the importance and significance of carceral space.

First, Thomas Ugelvik’s book chapter “The Bellman and the Prison Officer: Customer Care in Imperfect Panopticons” is a fascinating piece which contrasts the ‘gaze’ of the prison officer and the hotel bellman, as they observe prisoners and hotel guests in ways which balance professional customer care with concerns for security and control. He calls this a ‘dual optic’, ‘partly focused on the needs of others, partly on the potential problems these others represent’ (Ugelvik 2013, 192). Drawing on the penal context of Norway, he also draws attention to the issue of privacy as experienced in carceral spaces and in hotels, in that in neither context can prisoners nor hotel guests completely close off ‘their’ spaces from the officer or the bellman – although he points out the lack of fit between the ‘panoptical’ prison model and Norwegian prison cells, where prisoners are afforded a legal right to privacy.

Next, taking up the notion of prisoner privacy, a paper in press emerges from research into women’s imprisonment in Russia, focusing squarely on the elusiveness of privacy in carceral space. By deploying a theoretical engagement with the concepts of ‘public’ and ‘private’, the paper exlores the experience of surveilled carceral space, specifically the ways in which imprisoned women negotiate and engage with apparently ‘public’ spaces to construct the ‘private’ by deploying a range of personal tactics such as retreat into the self, or intentional violation of prison rules, to experience the ‘punishment’ of solitary confinement. “Privacy in Penal Space: Women’s Imprisonment in Russia” by Dominique Moran, Judith Pallot and Laura Piacentini, is available in early view at Geoforum.

Jennifer Turner’s recent review paper “Disciplinary Engagements with Prisons, Prisoners and the Penal System” calls for ‘renewed interest in the relational, fluid, contradictory and nuanced spaces of imprisonment’ , particularly in regard to ‘the affective nature of imprisonment’ (Turner 2013, 41). She points out the value of perspectives from cultural geography in drawing attention to these nuanced spaces, and in drawing out their significance ‘to open up the political at a more ‘personal’ level’ (ibid 35).

Turner’s call for attention to be paid to the affective potential of penal space is the focus of Dominique Moran’s new paper “Carceral geography and the spatialities of prison visiting: visitation, recidivism and hyperincarceration“, which draws together recent work in human geography on emotion and affect, as a means of understanding the personal experience of carceral space – specifically the experience of prison visiting rooms as liminal transformative spaces for prisoners and visitors alike. In so doing, it argues that in advancing understandings of the affective dimension of human experience in carceral space, carceral geography could not only exemplify a concept, but also participate in efforts to make positive social and political change.

Finally, engaging with carceral space in a very different way, Judah Schept’s forthcoming paper “‘A lockdown facility…with the feel of a small, private college’: Liberal politics, jail expansion, and the carceral habitus‘ discusses ways in which communities participate in the production of the carceral state in the United States, and specifically, the ways in which mass incarceration imbues even oppositional politics, as communities reformulate and adapt the material manifestations of mass incarceration to fit specific local contexts. Schept contends that ‘mass incarceration is both more forceful and more subject to diverse and context-specific formulations than has previously been argued’, and he argues that ‘the corporal and discursive inscription of carcerality into individual and community bodies’ suggests the presence of what he terms a ‘carceral habitus’. This term,  in the context of his paper, offers a way to understand the ways in which mass incarceration pervades even those people and communities ‘which purport to reject it’ suggests that mass incarceration is not just ‘out there’ in media representations, political rhetoric and everyday penal functionings, but also ‘in here’ in the ‘everyday negotiations and productions of the social world’ .

Considering habitus as as an ‘always sociospatially contextualized, nature of practice’ (Holt 2008, 228) enables the notion of carceral habitus as a shared consciousness to be mapped onto tangible spaces, potentially opening a space for carceral geography to consider the ‘carceral’  as emplaced and affective, as a social construction ‘relevant both within and outside physical spaces of incarceration’ (Moran 2013, 176) and to inform future research into the relationship between the carceral and a punitive state.

“Sites of Confinement” event at Liverpool John Moores University – March 2013

/ carceralgeography

Many thanks to Monish Bhatia for bringing this upcoming event to my attention – sounds like a great opportunity to discuss some very current ideas.

Sites of Confinement is taking place on 22nd March 2013, at Liverpool John Moores University, 68 Hope Street, Liverpool, UK.

This day conference offers an opportunity to critically discuss increases in the uses of confinement and incarceration in relation to neoliberalism, globally as well as in the UK.

With activists, researchers and academics working in prisons, detention centres and camps, it will consider the roles of social structures, power, and lived experience in relation to confinement. Importantly, this conference will consider increases in incarceration as a method of social control in areas of extreme deprivation, as well as with marginalised groups.

The full details, including speakers and paper titles, and joining instructions, are available here

Carceral Geography at the AAG 2013

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Thanks to a wonderful response to the Call for Papers, Shaul Cohen and I have been able to organise a number of sessions on Carceral Geography for the AAG 2013 in Los Angeles this April.

 The so-called ‘punitive turn’ has brought new ways of thinking about geography and the state, and has highlighted spaces of incarceration as a new terrain for exploration by geographers. Geographical engagements with incarceration have put these spaces, and experiences within them, firmly on the disciplinary map. Human geography, and specifically the evolving sub-discipline of carceral geography, have much to offer to the study of incarceration, and taking the carceral as a locus of research offers useful opportunities both to invigorate ongoing developments within human geography, and to contribute to positive social change.

Carceral geography is a new but a fast-moving and fast-developing sub-discipline, and is proving an increasingly vibrant field. These sessions provide a space for discussion of recent scholarship, situating it in the context both of contemporary human geography and of the interdisciplinary literature from criminology and prison sociology upon which it draws, and to also explore a range of potential avenues of future research which are open to transdisciplinarity, which are both informed by and extend theoretical developments in geography, but which also, and critically, interface with contemporary debates over hyperincarceration and the punitive state.

There will be four sessions in all, sponsored by the Cultural Geography Specialty Group of the AAG – three paper sessions and a roundtable session for a forthcoming book: Details are:

Carceral Geography: Debates, Developments and Directions I

Carceral Geography: Debates, Developments and Directions II

Carceral Geography: Debates, Developments and Directions III ‘Carceral Spaces: Mobility and Agency in Imprisonment and Migrant Detention’

This session coalesces around a new edited book which defines a new field in geographical research, drawing together the work of a new community of scholars and a growing body of work in carceral geography – the geographical engagement with the practices of imprisonment and migrant detention. Increasingly, these spheres overlap. Just as ‘mainstream’ prison populations have expanded over the past twenty-five years, there has also been a veritable explosion in the use of detention for irregular migrants. Migrants are increasingly scrutinized as criminals, so much so that scholars and activists now refer to this nexus as ‘crimmigration’. This book brings together scholars whose work engages practices of imprisonment and/or migrant detention with the goal of opening up a forum within geography and related interdisciplinary fields of study (critical prison studies, criminology, etc.) for conversation / dialogue across these ever more intertwined spheres.

Organisers and Panelists: Dominique Moran, Nick Gill, Deirdre Conlon, Lauren Martin, Kelsey Nowakowski, Mason McWatters, Julie de Dardel

Carceral Geography: Debates, Developments and Directions IV

Call for Papers: RGS-IBG 2013 “exploring social reintegration and rehabilitation into the ‘everyday’”

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Agatha Herman and Kim Ward are organising a fascinating session at the RGS-IBG conference later this year, and have issued the following Call for Papers. The session highlights reintegration and rehabilitation, and carceral geographers may be interested in presenting papers which could focus on carceral spaces and the challenges of release from incarceration.

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London, 28-30 August 2013

Creativity and transition: exploring social reintegration and rehabilitation into the ‘everyday’

Organizers: Agatha Herman (University of Plymouth) and Kim Ward (University of Cardiff).

This session is sponsored by the Geographies of Justice Research Group and the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group.

Adjusting to ‘civilian’ life can be a challenge whether, within the UK context, you’re one of the 170,000 offenders released each year to the probation service or one of the 20,000 currently leaving the British armed forces annually.  Employment, relationships, finances, mental health, housing… all can become issues for those returning to ‘civilian’ spaces.  Considering the numbers and needs of those transitioning out of military or carceral institutions, particularly against the contemporary backdrop of austerity, highlights the necessity of effective and sustainable reintegration and rehabilitation for economic, social, political and moral reasons.  However, individuals worldwide and outside of these particular spaces can also struggle with exclusion from the ‘everyday’.

This session explores in particular how creative practices can support the reintegration and rehabilitation of those who, in the broadest sense, have become separated from everyday social spaces, practices and communities.  In particular we are looking to explore innovative and resourceful methods of engaging with those in transition, as well as the creative methods that can be used to connect with, and support, reintegration and rehabilitation experiences.  Contributions are welcome from a range of areas across and beyond geography, including engagements from outside academia.

Potential questions/topics for discussion include:

  • Can creativity be inclusive?
  • Theatre, music and arts-based projects
  • Social responsibility towards veterans?
  • Social exclusion, substance abuse and homelessness
  • Mental health
  • Carceral spaces
  • Creative methodologies to engage with social exclusion
  • Challenges of working in disciplinary environments
  • Performing rehabilitation

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Agatha Herman (agatha.herman@plymouth.ac.uk) by Tuesday 5th February 2013.

Funded PhD studentship: “The Carceral Archipelago: Transnational Circulations in Global Perspective, 1415-1960”

/ carceralgeography

The School of Historical Studies at the University of Leicester is offering a PhD studentship package for research on the Russian island of Sakhalin as part of a €1.5 million European Research Council grant for the project ‘The Carceral Archipelago: Transnational Circulations in Global Perspective, 1415-1960’.

This project will take a case study and comparative approach to the history of imperial expansion, unfree labour, confinement, and their legacies through a focus on the history of penal colonies all over the world.

Full details can be found at: http://www2.le.ac.uk/study/research/funding/carceral-archipelago . Please note that the closing date for applications is 8 March 2013.

ESRC PhD studentship: Technical Justice: Examining Video-Linking in Immigration Courts

/ carceralgeography

ESRC PhD studentship: Technical Justice: Examining Video-Linking in Immigration Courts

The College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter is pleased to offer a PhD studentship funded by the ESRC for entry in 2013/14. Successful applicants will be based within Geography (Streatham Campus, Exeter) at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter.

Supervisor:

Dr Nick Gill n.m.gill@exeter.ac.uk

Project Description

Video-linking was introduced in 2008 in the UK to allow for speedier determination of asylum appeals, as well as bail hearings for asylum seekers held in detention. According to the Ministry of Justice, video-linking works as follows: “If you are detained it may be possible that your case will be heard by video link. This means that you will remain in your place of detention and give any evidence that you have to give by video link. You will be able to see and hear the hearing room and all the parties on a television where you are detained, and everyone in the hearing room will be able to see and hear you on a television there” (Ministry of Justice webpage, October 2011).

The use of video-linking is justified partly in terms of the time saved: judges, representatives and applicants do not have to travel as far. There have been, however, a series of concerns raised by asylum support groups about the use of video-linking in courts including concerns relating to the adequacy of this form of presence in the courtroom.

This is a fully funded PhD position to run alongside the ESRC project ‘Examining Geographic Disparities in Asylum Appeal Success Rates at Different Hearing Centres Around the UK’. The PhD will explore video-linking in immigration courts from a variety of theoretical perspectives which might include, but are not limited to, socio-technical debates, mobilities, analyses of time, rhythmanalysis, virtuality, absences, synchronicity and simultaneity.

Practical questions that the student might explore include: how does video-linking impact upon the asylum appeal or bail hearing experience from the perspective of the applicant? How does video-linking impact upon the hearing from the perspective of others involved in the appeal process? What different experiences of asylum appeals via video-link do different types of applicant experience (e.g. by gender, nationality, age, language skill and case type)?

More conceptual questions might include: how can the case of video-linking within detention shed more light upon the relationship between virtuality and mobilities? How are different forms of presence distributed through the process of video-linking and what are the key political and social issues that arise as a result of this distribution? What are the implications of the virtualisation of legal processes?

The student will benefit from being part of a wider research team working on related issues, with input from a range of relevant charities and pressure groups. Alongside the standard thesis, the student will be expected to produce and widely disseminate a user-report of their findings.

Academic entry requirements:

Candidates must have (or expect to complete by September 2013) a Masters degree in a social science or relevant discipline with appropriate research training. In addition candidates must have obtained a First or Upper Second Class UK Honours degree, or the equivalent qualifications gained outside the UK, in a social science or relevant discipline. Applicants with either an academic or personal knowledge of immigration law (especially asylum law) will be at an advantage.

Value of award and residency entry requirements:

The studentship will cover a stipend at the standard Research Council rate (currently £13,590 per annum for 2012-2013), a contribution towards research costs and tuition fees at the UK/EU rate for students who meet the residency requirements outlined by the ESRC (see http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/looking-for-funding/eligibility.aspx) for up to three years. Students from EU countries who do not meet the residency requirements may still be eligible for a fees-only award.

This position is advertised online at: http://www.exeter.ac.uk/studying/funding/award/?id=1126 and http://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=42797

Application procedures:

Please upload the following documents to the studentship application form – Click here to apply

The preferred format for all uploaded files is .pdf and preferred filename should start with your last name.

  • CV
  • Covering letter (outlining your academic interests, prior research experience and reasons for wishing to undertake the project).
  • Transcript(s) giving full details of subjects studied and grades/marks obtained (this should be an interim transcript if you are still studying)
  • 2 references (if your referees prefer, they can email the reference direct to cles-studentships@exeter.ac.uk)

If you have any general enquiries about the application process please email cles-studentships@exeter.ac.uk or phone +44 (0)1392 725150/723706/723310.

The closing date for applications is midnight Thursday 7th March 2013.

Funded PhD studentship: The effectiveness of immigration detention centres in preparing detainees for removal

/ carceralgeography

The Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford is offering one collaborative ESRC + 3 studentship to commence in October 2013 co-funded by Her Majesty’s Prison Inspectorate entitled, ‘The effectiveness of immigration detention centres in preparing detainees for removal: a study of detention centre conditions and outcomes’.

The +3 studentship covers the cost of fees and provides a stipend for three years of doctoral study. It is open to students with a good first degree and a Masters degree in any relevant social science. Students with a masters degree the curriculum of which does not meet the ESRC’s graduate training requirements will be required to take additional methods training during the first year of their doctoral study.

ESRC +3 Studentships are only available to UK (fees plus stipend) and EU (fees only) students.

Applications are invited for these studentships with a closing date of Friday 18th January 2013.  Interviews will be held on week of 11 February 2013.

To apply, please see the further details below.

Further information

All applicants should read the ESRC Guidance Notes for Applicants and eligibility criteria which can be found on the ESRC website at: www.esrc.ac.uk.

Informal enquiries about the studentships are welcome and can be made to Dr. Mary Bosworth; email mary.bosworth@crim.ox.ac.uk; tel: +44 (0)1865 281927.

Enquiries about the application process should be addressed to Ms Tracy Kaye, Graduate Studies Administrator; email: tracy.kaye@crim.ox.ac.uk; tel. + 44 (0)1865 274444.

Further information about the Centre, its staff, research and graduate programmes can be found on the Centre’s website: http://www.crim.ox.ac.uk/index.html.

Information about HM Inspectorate of Prisons can be found at: http://www.justice.gov.uk/about/hmi-prisons

Collaborative HMIP/ESRC ‘+3’ Studentship

‘The effectiveness of Immigration detention centres in preparing detainees for removal: A study of detention centre conditions and outcomes.’

Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford

Further Details

The +3 studentship is available to those who wish to study for a doctorate having already completed a Masters degree. Students with a masters degree whose curriculum does not meet the ESRC’s graduate training requirements will be required to take additional methods training during the first year of their doctoral study.

The studentship will examine the effectiveness of programs in British immigration removal centres.  It will be supervised by Dr Mary Bosworth, with staff at HMIP providing mentorship.  The project will be primarily qualitative, based on observation and interviews with detainees and staff.  The student may also use survey tools developed for understanding life in detention.  Strong methodological training will be essential.  Some knowledge of languages other than English would be helpful.

The project will be in line with HMIP’s statutory remit to inspect conditions of detention and treatment of detainees. It will help to develop HMIP’s effectiveness and impact in the agreed area of study.  As part of her or his induction and ongoing learning, the student will undergo induction and training at HMIP. He or she may be required to reasonably contribute to some aspects of HMIP’s work, for instance accompanying them on inspection.  This will not be such as to obstruct the student’s ability to pursue the project.  The student appointed to carry out the studentship will provide an interim and final report to HMIP on the progress of his or her research

How to Apply

Applications for the collaborative HMIP/ESRC +3 studentship are invited from those who i) have obtained a first class, or high upper second class degree, in a relevant subject, such as criminology, sociology, law, social policy, politics, and history, and ii) have completed, or by the end of September 2013 expect to have completed, a masters degree in a relevant subject with an average mark of 68% or above.

To apply you need to submit a full application to the University of Oxford for a DPhil in Criminology via Graduate Admissions:

  1. A completed application form, which can be downloaded from: http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/postgraduate_courses/index.html.  (Applicants must read the accompanying Notes of Guidance before completing this form);
  2. A letter of application, stating your reasons for wishing to pursue the programme;
  3. CV/Résumé;
  4. An official transcript of previous higher education results up to the present;
  5. Two samples of written work (each piece should be around 2,000 words in length; it may be a clearly defined extract from a longer piece of work if you prefer);
  6. A research proposal of 2,000 words, which should be the outline of a proposed doctoral study indicating your chosen topic; why you are interested in it; the research questions you want to ask, and how you propose to answer them;
  7. Three academic references;
  8. An application fee payment of £50.

Applicants should refer to the relevant studentship in Section I on the application form by using the appropriate code, either ‘CFC/1314/ESRC/HMIP+3’.

This should be sent to the Graduate Admissions Office by 5:00 p.m. on Friday 18th January 2013.

A copy of all the application materials should also be sent by email to Ms Tracy Kaye on tracy.kaye@crim.ox.ac.uk by 5:00 p.m. on Friday 18th January 2013

Interviews will be held on: the week of 11 February 2013