Life Imprisonment From Young Adulthood

Life imprisonment from young adulthood is the latest offering from the Palgrave series on studies in prisons and penology. The research fulfils an important gap in knowledge about the experience of ‘the most extreme sanction of the state’ (p. 1): life imprisonment (sentences of 15 years or more) from a young age, with a fifth of participants being sentenced prior to their 18th birthday. The research originated from discussions with senior figures and personnel from the National Offender Management Service (now Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service) about the changing nature of the long-term prisoner population. Using a mixed-methods approach of 313 surveys and 147 in-depth interviews across 24 sites in England and Wales, the research is the largest ever sociological study of long-term imprisonment conducted in Europe. The introductory chapter outlines how sentencing has evolved as part of a growing trend of penal populism, resulting in increasingly younger prisoners serving increasingly longer sentences. The book is comprehensively researched, with Crewe, Hulley and Wright presenting a detailed account of the pains of, particularly long-term, imprisonment to set the scene for the arguments that follow. They build on a solid literature review through discussion of themes including maturity and identity within long-term imprisonment, thus positioning the justification for the research focus on young adulthood

Art · Criminology · Identity (music · Imprisonment · Life course approach · Life imprisonment · Penology · Population · Prison · Sociology · Wright · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Demography · History · Psychology · Social Psychology