Book review: Ben Crewe, Susie Hulley and Serena Wright, Life Imprisonment from Young Adulthood: Adaptation, Identity and Time
| Author | Alexandra L Cox |
| Published date | 01 February 2021 |
| Date | 01 February 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1362480620944618 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480620944618
Theoretical Criminology
2021, Vol. 25(1) 1 –3
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1362480620944618
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Book review
Ben Crewe, Susie Hulley and Serena Wright, Life Imprisonment from Young Adulthood: Adaptation,
Identity and Time, Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2020; 340 pp.: 9781137566003, 93.59 Euros (hbk)
Reviewed by: Alexandra L Cox, University of Essex, UK
As the authors of this important new book note, it is a critical moment to understand the
effects of lengthy prison sentences. The average minimum period served for life sen-
tences in England and Wales was 12.5 years in 2003; by 2013 it had grown to 21.3 years
(p. 2). Yet this phenomenon is not just limited to England and Wales; American states
have increasingly relied upon life and long-term sentences (Courtney et al., 2017). Long-
term and lengthy sentences are the direct consequences of policy choices rooted in
assumptions about public demands and needs, appeals to public safety and the character
of individuals charged with serious and violent offending. The consequences of lengthy
prison sentences have been examined by scholars over the years, but no one has exam-
ined the effects of imprisonment on the inner lives, imaginations and identities of the
people facing these sentences with the depth and rigour of this study. This study takes the
inner lives of these individuals seriously, reckoning with the ‘existential, affective and
moral dimensions of long-term imprisonment’ (p. 323).
The research was accomplished through a methodological process of extraordinary
scale and scope: the authors interviewed 147 men and women in prison and surveyed a
total of 330 participants in 25 prisons across the UK. The group of individuals studied
were young (under the age of 25) when they were given a life sentence with a tariff of 15
years or more (p. 30). Crewe et al.—interviewing both male and female prisoners—
engaged in a thoughtful analysis of their work, which included the unique methodologi-
cal approach of what they term ‘pen portraits’, analytical memos about the interviews.
Crewe et al. conducted a survey of the perceptions of imprisonment among individu-
als at different stages of their sentence. They chose to build upon an instrument devel-
oped by Barry Richards, sociologist and former clinical psychologist, who did a 1978
study on long-term imprisonment which involved problem statements that prisoners
addressed about their perceptions of imprisonment. As the researchers rightly noted,
extant research which suggests that the problems of imprisonment tend to be less severe
amongst prisoners who are later in their sentence has been contested by researchers
working within qualitative perspectives (p. 16). However, the survey instrument used by
944618TCR0010.1177/1362480620944618Theoretical CriminologyBook review
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