Reconceptualizing multisectoral prison regulation: Voluntary organizations and bereaved families as regulators
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1362480621989264 |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480621989264
Theoretical Criminology
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1362480621989264
journals.sagepub.com/home/tcr
Reconceptualizing
multisectoral prison regulation:
Voluntary organizations and
bereaved families as regulators
Philippa Tomczak
University of Nottingham, UK
Abstract
Prison health, prisoner safety and imprisonment rates matter: intrinsically and for health
and safety outside. Existing prison regulation apparatuses (e.g. OPCAT) are extensive
and hold unrealized potential to shape imprisonment. However, criminologists have
not yet engaged much with this potential. In this article, I reconceptualize prison
regulation by exploring the work of a broad range of multisectoral regulators who
operate across stakeholder groups. I illustrate that voluntary organizations and families
bereaved by prison suicide act as regulators, although their substantive actions have
been erased from official narratives. Mobilizing (threats of) litigation, these actors have
responsibilized the state and brought qualitative changes across the prison estate.
Keywords
non-governmental organizations, OPCAT, poststructuralism, prison oversight, prison
suicide, voluntary sector
Introduction
Prison health, prisoner safety and imprisonment rates matter: intrinsically, to anyone
interested in their fellow citizens’ rights and well-being, and for health and safety
throughout societies. Prison regulation is an important ‘counterweight to potential abuse
of the special powers of the state’ (Hood et al., 1999: 116), made only more urgent by
neoliberal carceral expansionism in many jurisdictions (Bosworth, 2011; Wacquant,
Corresponding author:
Philippa Tomczak, Principal Research Fellow, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of
Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG7 2RD, UK.
Email: Philippa.tomczak@nottingham.ac.uk
989264TCR0010.1177/1362480621989264Theoretical CriminologyTomczak
research-article2021
Article
2022, Vol. 26(3) 494–514
2010), the globally expanding prison population (Penal Reform International, 2019) and
the COVID-19 pandemic. Regulation, broadly defined here as ‘steering the flow of
events and behaviour’ (Braithwaite et al., 2007a: 3), is concerned with improving perfor-
mance and holding key personnel responsible for it. Regulation encompasses sanction-
ing and supporting activities, most frequently involving education and persuasion but
potentially escalating to litigation and prizes (Braithwaite et al., 2007b). Regulation has
transformed some public services (Smith, 2009) and can influence conditions and treat-
ment in institutions (Braithwaite et al., 2007b). As John Braithwaite and his colleagues
(2007a: 4) put it: ‘good regulation can control problems that might otherwise lead to
bankruptcy and war, and can emancipate the lives of ordinary people . . . Regulation
matters, and therefore the development and empirical testing of theories about regulation
also matter.’ Existing prison regulation apparatuses are extensive and hold substantive,
yet unrealized potential to (re)shape imprisonment; for example, by seeking to improve
prison health and safety for the benefit of prisoners, staff, families and the societies from
which prisoners come and almost always return. Nevertheless, a great deal more research
is required to inform and understand the (potential) impacts of regulation on prisons and
societies (Padfield, 2018; Rogan, 2019).
In the most comprehensive account to date, Van Zyl Smit (2010) maps multiscalar
prison regulation. Yet, reflecting regulation scholarship more generally, his state-centric
account stops short of exploring a wider regulatory landscape, where private actors play
very significant regulatory roles (Grabosky, 2013). Substantive literatures detail how
prisons should and could operate: for example, (inter)national case law and guidance
including the UN Mandela and Bangkok Rules and European Prison Rules (Rogan,
2019; Van Zyl Smit, 2010); and scholarship examining prison moral and social climates
(e.g. Liebling, 2004). It is however unclear how laws, overseers’ recommendations,
guidance and knowledge can more consistently influence prison safety in practice
(Tomczak, 2018). Moreover, significant resources are invested in prison oversight,
undertaken by paid staff and thousands of volunteers (Tomczak and Buck, 2019a), with
little understanding of whether these resources are being usefully expended.
Using data generated during three years of qualitative research (2015–2018) on rela-
tionships between prison suicide and regulation in England and Wales, I illuminate how
voluntary organizations and families bereaved by prison suicide act as regulators.
(Threats of) litigation following multiple self-inflicted deaths at (1) Her Majesty’s Prison
(HMP) Styal, (2) Her Majesty’s Young Offender Institution (HMYOI) Aylesbury and (3)
HMP Woodhill have brought unrecognised changes across the prison estate.
I argue that developing a rigorous and nuanced theory of multisectoral prison regula-
tion, could form a productive means for scholars and community partners to do more
than documenting the harms of mass incarceration, and thereby map a more optimistic
way ahead (Bosworth, 2011; Carlen, 2001; Zedner, 2002). My reconceptualization offers
new and more numerous ways to question assumptions and hierarchies in existing prison
regulation scholarship and think about how prison regulation and (mass) imprisonment
could be otherwise. It also suggests how many jurisdictions’ bloated prisons, which fre-
quently confine disproportionately minority populations and pose risks to societal safety,
could be subject to greater, sustained challenge.
495
Tomczak
To continue reading
Request your trial