This open access book describes everyday life in Close Supervision Centres special units within the England & Wales prison system that hold men considered too difficult or dangerous to be accommodated in mainstream prisons. Based on unprecedented access to these sites of 'deep confinement', and involving interviews with 40 men held within them, it documents in close and vivid detail the subjective experience of acutely controlled conditions, staff-prisoner dynamics, psychological power, and often tense relations between prisoners themselves. The analysis characterises the 'CSC system' as a kind of crucible: a highly intense social and relational environment, which places extreme men alongside each other in an environment of extreme restriction. In capturing the social and emotional texture of deep incarceration, including feelings ranging from hopelessness and distress to sanctuary and mental liberation, the book explores penal legitimacy, and what humans can endure, at the outer edges of state power.

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access Provides a unique account of the most restrictive units in the England and Wales prison system The first book to fully capture the texture of 'deep confinement' Offers a nuanced analysis of the tragedy and complexity of extreme custody

Autorentext

Ben Crewe is Professor of Penology and Criminal Justice, and Deputy Director of the Prisons Research Centre, at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK.

Inhalt

Introduction The deep end: humanity and survival at the edges of penality.- Deep confinement: the history, structure and management of the CSC system.- The men within the system: backgrounds, characteristics and trajectories.- Depth at the deep end.- The weight of deep confinement.- Tightness: psychology, progression and bureaucracy.- Resistance and official challenge.- Social relations.- Hope, despair and extreme confinement.- Epilogue.