RT Article
T1 Innocence as burden and resource: Adaptation and resistance during wrongful imprisonment
JF Theoretical criminology
VO 27
IS 3
SP 499
OP 516
A1 Umamaheswar, Janani
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1853895210
AB Drawing on theoretical scholarship on adaptation and resistance in prisons, I explore the significance and function of innocence—and the acute sense of non-belonging it triggers in the prison setting—in wrongfully-convicted men's responses to imprisonment. Using in-depth interviews with 15 exonerated men in the United States, I argue that innocence functioned as a double-edged sword for the men as they adapted to their wrongful imprisonment: Innocence represented a social and psychological burden as men adjusted to prison life, but it simultaneously facilitated their resistance to formal and informal penal control. Through a discussion of how the men leveraged their innocence to distance themselves psychologically, socially, and symbolically from the prison world, I highlight how, despite being victims of egregious injustice, wrongfully-convicted men are also agentic resistors of the penal system.
K1 adaptation to prison
K1 Resistance
K1 Innocence
K1 Prisons
K1 wrongful imprisonment
K1 Wrongful convictions
DO 10.1177/13624806221112167