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Ian O’Donnell, Prisoners, Solitude and Time

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
DOI10.1177/1462474517692191
Published date01 December 2018
Date01 December 2018
Subject MatterBook reviews
SG-PUNJ170030 539..561
Punishment & Society
2018, Vol. 20(5) 646–657
! The Author(s) 2017
Book reviews
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1462474517692191
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
Ian O’Donnell, Prisoners, Solitude and Time, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2014; 327 pp.
(including index): 780199684489, £65 (hardback)
Social scientists have never fully resolved the dif‌ferent f‌indings of psychological and
sociological studies of long-term imprisonment, in which the former have tended to
conclude that extended conf‌inement has few deleterious ef‌fects, while the latter
have highlighted existential and relational pain. In Prisoners, Solitude and Time,
O’Donnell points us to a potential explanation for these dif‌ferent f‌indings, suggest-
ing that, since forms of extreme conf‌inement push individuals back into the life of
the mind, while they are mentally corrosive for some – and should not be defended
– they can be enlightening for others: those who are able to travel mentally even
when their bodies are so deeply conf‌ined.
The f‌irst chapters of the book are largely historical and comprise a re-evaluation
of orthodox conclusions about the uniform impact of solitary conf‌inement. Tracing
its origins in religiously oriented ambitions to reform prisoners through enforced
moral introspection and highlighting its dif‌ferent forms (most of which were a
compromised version of pure solitude), O’Donnell provides a precise overview of
systems of separate and silent punishment. Drawing on a range of empirical stu-
dies, he goes on to question the degree to which solitary conf‌inement was quite as
corrosive and long-lasting in its damage as has generally been assumed.
Much of the aim of the book is to emphasise how such forms of imprisonment
are resisted, and to bring into focus the astonishing ‘durability of the individual
under even the most arduous of circumstances’ (p. 33). O’Donnell is careful to note
the importance of context and intent, contrasting the...

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