Book Reviews

The Prisoner Society: Power, Adaptation and Social Life in an English Prison (ClarendonStudies in Criminology) B. Crewe. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2009) 519pp.d60.00hb ISBN 978-0-19-957796-5

This impressive volume in the highly regarded Clarendon Studies in Criminology seriesrepresents a major contribution to the tradition of sociological studies of the prison. Italso revives the somewhat dormant tradition of ethnographic prison studies, involvingthe immersion of the researcher in the everyday culture of a custodial institution: inCrewe’s case, HMP Wellingborough, a Category C male prison selected for its‘ordinariness’. In common with other ethnographic researchers, Crewe eschews thesearch for generalisability of research data which might have led him to dip in and out ofseveral institutions, in favour of a single case-study which enables him to absorb andanalyse in depth the culture of the institution and really get to grips with the livedexperience(s) of prison life from the point(s) of view of both prisoners and staff. Theresult is an engaging and beautifully-drawn account of the prison’s social and cultural‘innards’ which are normally hidden from view. The book is rich in texture and detail,theoretically sophisticated and – perhaps unusually for such a lengthy book – never dull.

The thematic territory covered by the book is quite broad, with the main empiricalfindings spread between Chapters 4 and 8. These follow on from three key ‘scene-setting’ chapters which usefully ground the research in the context of both existingprisons literature and recent penal theory and policy. In the latter part of the bookCrewe’s focus is the ‘social life’ of the prison, with individual chapters (6, 7 and 8respectively) addressing the ‘prisoner hierarchy’, ‘friendship and social relations’ and‘everyday social life and culture’. These are clearly key topics for prison scholars andsociologists more generally, and all merit in-depth consideration. However, the core ofthe book is to be found in Chapters 4 and 5. Here Crewe develops an account of theexercise of penal power in the institutional context, and the varying ways in whichindividual prisoners submit, adapt to or resist it. This, in my view, is the book’s keycontribution to the sociology of punishment.

Building on a range of theoretical resources Crewe characterises the particularform of power he discerns within the prison walls in terms of ‘neo-paternalism’. This isjuxtaposed alongside the ‘authoritarian power’ more characteristic of prisons in theperiod between the 1970s and 1990s (Table 4.1, p.145). ‘Neo-paternalism’ is, however,a label which arguably does not do justice to the multiple, and sometimescontradictory, strategies which, Crewe argues, combine to produce it. As he explains,this form of power combines ‘a welfarist concern with rehabilitation and decency, aneo-liberal emphasis on responsibility and self-regulation, and an authoritarianimpulse of control and compliance’ (p.10). In this context contemporary ‘psy’-penalprogrammes such as the Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme, cognitive-behavioural interventions and risk assessment procedures (among others) are allimplicated. ‘The [contemporary] carceral experience’, Crewe continues, ‘is lessdirectly oppressive, but more gripping . . . It is described by prisoners less in termsof weight than ‘‘tightness’’’ (p.449). The burdens created by this particular formationof power are, Crewe argues, key to an understanding of the ‘contemporary pains ofimprisonment’ discussed in the book’s conclusion.

The Howard Journal Vol 49 No 5. December 2010 DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2311.2010.00643.xISSN 0265-5527, pp. 545–553

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In Chapter 5, Crewe turns his attention to the range of response to thisconfiguration of power among prisoners, presenting a useful typology of ‘adaptations’which will, no doubt, be recognisable to professionals and researchers in all of thosepenal fields where offenders’ compliance is variable. Indeed, it has already proveduseful in the context of studies of police custody and community penalties (Skinns,forthcoming; McNeill and Robinson, forthcoming). In his characterisations of‘players’, ‘pragmatists’, ‘enthusiasts’, ‘stoics’ and ‘retreatists’ Crewe captures thevarious ways in which individual agency interacts with regimes of power, marking outand preserving the individuality of prisoners in what are ostensibly the same structuraland cultural environments. This analysis of the ‘differential experience of power’(p.244) is powerfully illustrated by Crewe’s interview data and the voices of individualprisoners as they describe their personal styles of engagement with the rules andregimes of the prison. Crewe also considers the potential for adaptive styles to shiftduring an individual’s sentence, for example in response to particular forms of‘treatment’ by the prison and its staff.

Crewe’s book captures vividly a moment in the history of the ‘ordinary’ English prisonwhich may already be passing us by, but this in no way detracts from its value as anexcellent piece of scholarship and an important contribution to the sociology ofpunishment. This book deserves – and will be a useful resource for – a wide audience,from established prison scholars and sociologists to students coming to prison scholarshipfor the first time. Crewe’s useful reflexive account of the research process (most of whichappears in an appendix) will also be of value to others who may be contemplating orwanting to learn more about the conduct of ethnographic research. The Prisoner Societyshould, however, also be read by scholars whose research is not centred on prisons, butwhich, nonetheless, touches on the ‘big themes’ of this book: the transformation andexercise of penal power in late-modern contexts, and the ways in which that power isexperienced by individuals caught in the penal net. At d60 (it is currently available only inhardback) this book is a significant investment, but it will not disappoint.

References

McNeill, F. and Robinson, G. (forthcoming) ‘Liquid legitimacy and community sanctions’,in: A. Crawford and A. Hucklesby (Eds.), Legitimacy and Criminal Justice, Cullompton:Willan.

Skinns, L. (forthcoming) Police Custody: Legitimacy, Governance and Reform in the CriminalJustice Process, Cullompton: Willan.

GWEN ROBINSONSenior Lecturer in Criminal Justice,School of Law,University of Sheffield.

Public Criminology? I. Loader and R. Sparks. London: Routledge (2010) 196pp.d80.00hb ISBN 978-0-415-44549-8 d22.99pb ISBN 978-0-415-44550-4

Loader and Sparks have produced an engaging, clever and lively book, but also onewhich is deeply frustrating and ultimately disappointing. The engaging part shouldspeak for itself – both Loader and Sparks are two of our most eminent criminologists –and in one sense much of the book can be read as both a history of criminology and as a‘tour de horizon’ of the discipline. They bring their considerable intellectual skills tomake these parts of the book entertaining and fresh, but thereafter the frustrationsand disappointments start to mount up.

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The Howard Journal Vol 49 No 5. December 2010ISSN 0265-5527, pp. 545–553