RT Article
T1 Heavy–light, absent–present: rethinking the ‘weight’ of imprisonment
JF The British journal of sociology
VO 65
IS 3
SP 387
OP 410
A1 Crewe, Ben
A1 Liebling, Alison 1963-
A1 Hulley, Susie
LA English
YR 2014
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1689320931
AB Since King and McDermott (1995), following Downes (1988), defined the psychological oppressiveness of incarceration in terms of ‘weight’, little has been written about the ‘weight of imprisonment’. None the less, it is generally assumed that prisons that are ‘light’ are preferable to those that are ‘heavy’ – in part because of an assumption among many penologists that power, and its application, is dangerous and antagonistic. This article does not dispute that ‘heavy’ prisons are undesirable. Its argument is that there can also be dangers if prisons are excessively light. Many of these dangers are linked to the under‐use of power. The tone and quality of prison life depends on the combined effects of institutional weight with the ‘absence’ or ‘presence’ of staff power. Drawing on prisoners' descriptions of their experiences in public and private sector prisons, and their assessments of important aspects of their quality of life, the article outlines what these concepts mean in practice. The authors develop a four‐quadrant framework for conceptualizeng penal legitimacy and the experience of penal authority.
K1 Imprisonment
K1 Weight
K1 Power
K1 Legitimacy
K1 Prison staff
DO 10.1111/1468-4446.12084