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Book review: Penal populism, John Pratt. London: Routledge, 2007. 210 pp

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
DOI10.1177/14624745070090040410
Published date01 October 2007
Date01 October 2007
AuthorMick Ryan
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-17OH63qlIP7DYv/input BOOK REVIEWS
cohabitees, a partnership destined to conflict’ (Genders and Player, 1995: 120). Such an
assertion is strongly endorsed by several of the contributors to the volume. Peter Bennett’s
account of his first days as Governor of Grendon reveals the huge difficulties that emerge
in the attempt to bridge the gap between the different, sometimes conflicting, expec-
tations and views of residents, TC staff and non-TC staff, regarding what a prison-based
TC should or should not be. Additional evidence for this can be found in the chapter
by Legget and Hirons, and Stewart and Parker’s discussion of the establishment of the
first women’s TC at HMP Send.
The final section of the book includes the testimonies of four prisoners about their
experiences in prison-based TCs. All four see their stay as a very positive experience that
has changed the course of their lives and helped them conceive of more hopeful
directions for the future. Other than these qualitative accounts however, the book
explicitly avoids discussing the sensitive issue of TCs’ effectiveness in reducing recon-
viction rates. As the editor explains, research about the effectiveness of TCs has already
been widely published. This is a legitimate editorial decision, which could be supported
on several grounds.
Given this decision, however, a more extensive discussion about the impact of TCs on
different aspects of the lives of prisoners and staff while in the prison could have been
expected. After all, TCs have presented themselves as alternatives to conventional prison
regimes, with an emphasis on the special relationships they encourage between residents
and staff and the more humane cultures that they establish. Even if such a discussion
might not be consistent with the current ‘What Works’ terminology, it might still be worth
exploring and could have provided some lessons for the rest of the prison system. To be
fair to this volume, this last point is the focus of another, recent publication, to which
some...

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