Book Review: Ironies of imprisonment
| Author | Joe Sim |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474505057124 |
| Published date | 01 October 2005 |
| Date | 01 October 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Copyright © SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
1462-4745; Vol 7(4): 483–501
DOI: 10.1177/1462474505057124
PUNISHMENT
& SOCIETY
Book reviews
Ironies of imprisonment, Michael Welch. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005.
237 pp.
This book builds on Michael Welch’s earlier, excellent text, Punishment in America
(Welch, 1999). Welch sees this latest work as contributing to an emerging paradigm,
which he terms ‘critical penology’. As he notes:
the thrust of a critical penology exposes the linkages between the political economy and
criminal justice system, creating a coercive prison apparatus serving the status quo. Situating
social inequality at the center of analysis, a critical penology points to evidence of racial and
socio-economic disparities in sentencing – along with a host of other injustices – that have
become the defining features of American penal policy. (p. 3)
Welch also sets out ‘to explore the ironies of imprisonment . . . to reveal the inconsis-
tencies and contradictions of American prisons while advancing further a critical
penology’ (p. 178). In 10 chapters, he analyses the role of the modern prison in repro-
ducing the withering, coruscating social order engendered by belligerent American capi-
talism. His analysis ranges from the history of the institution through to the challenge
of confronting prisons in their present form. In addition, he devotes chapters to health
care, the war on drugs, the ironies of capital punishment and prison privatization, which
challenge liberal and commonsensical perspectives in these areas. There are two other
chapters that are particularly useful. In chapter 6, ‘Reproducing prison violence’, Welch
discusses a number of important structural dimensions which are directly related to the
dynamics of prison violence, its institutionalization and its everyday reproduction. For
him, ‘violence behind bars is reproduced by interdependent behaviour between...
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