Deborah H. Drake, Prisons, Punishment and the Pursuit of Security
| Author | Emma Bell |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474513488863 |
| Published date | 01 October 2013 |
| Date | 01 October 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
After having read this book, a number of issues cross my mind. While the
findings definitely underscore the importance of trust and legitimacy in compliance,
it is surprising how little is known about the individual and social emergence of
legitimacy. Some studies, presented in the book, point to the importance of indi-
vidual differences in legitimacy in the explanation of compliance (e.g. the empirical
cross-sectional tests of Tyler’s model of procedural justice), while little is still
known about the social dynamics of (perceived) legitimacy and compliant behav-
ior. Such research requires a longitudinal approach (i.e. panel studies) which would
allow for a dynamic study of how legitimacy is developing over time. This is espe-
cially important to understand the impact of external events (e.g. law enforcement).
References
Beetham D (1991) The Legitimation of Power. London: Macmillan.
Jackson J, Bradford B, Stanko B and Hohl K (2013) Just Authority? Trust in the Police
in England and Wales. London and New York: Routledge.
Skogan W and Frydl K (eds) (2004) Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing:
The Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Lieven Pauwels
Ghent University, Belgium and the Institute of Urban Security and Policing Studies
Deborah H. Drake, Prisons, Punishment and the Pursuit of Security, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012; 232
pp.: 9780230282933, £55
This important book draws on in-depth ethnographic research carried out at all
five long-term maximum security prisons in England to problematize prison as a
means for society to pursue the elusive goal of security. By giving a voice to pris-
oners, it represents a significant contribution to the critical criminological litera-
ture, challenging the dominant security discourse which dehumanizes offenders,
treating them as risks to be managed rather than as fully human, complex
people capable of reconciliation.
Drake attributes the increased dominance of prison across the globe to the
spread of political ideologies which hold security up as the ultimate goal of con-
temporary governments. Following Mathiesen (2000), she regards prison, which
fundamentally serves to exclude undesirables from our midst, as having great sym-
bolic value in terms of tackling the problem of insecurity. Prison tends to be used
excessively by societies which seek to manage social problems by exclusionary,
often coercive, means. Drake places the desire to achieve security in the social
and the penal realms along the same continuum. This may seem reminiscent of
Wacquant (2009) who presents the prison as a way of managing social insecurity.
However, Drake suggests that rather than leading to the rise of a penal state, as
Wacquant suggests, these trends point instead to the emergence of a ‘security state’,
borrowing Hallsworth and Lea’s (2011) term.
424 Punishment & Society 15(4)
To continue reading
Request your trial