RT Article
T1 Investigating prison suicides: The politics of independent oversight
JF Punishment & society
VO 24
IS 3
SP 477
OP 497
A1 Aitken, Dominic
LA English
YR 2022
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/180559723X
AB This article examines the institutional arrangements in place to investigate prison suicides in England and Wales, focusing on inquiries by the Prisons & Probation Ombudsman and coroners’ inquests. The first half of the article is empirical, and draws on a set of elite interviews with Prisons & Probation Ombudsman investigators, senior coroners and other professionals involved in prison oversight. The latter half of the article is theoretical, and interprets prison suicide investigations as an example of broader trends of counter-democracy and depoliticisation. I provide a general theoretical overview of these concepts, and argue that Prisons & Probation Ombudsman investigations and coroners’ inquests operate according to a technocratic logic of independence, neutrality and rationality. The article concludes that prison suicide investigations are narrowly concerned with the factual details and administrative minutiae of individual cases, at the expense of more open ended, less manageable questions about the politics of punishment.
K1 Technocracy
K1 prison suicide
K1 politics of punishment
K1 depoliticisation
K1 counter-democracy
DO 10.1177/1462474521993002