Abstract
Being Imprisoned: Punishment, Adaptation and Desistance, by Marguerite Schinkel is part of the Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology series. A compilation edited by the criminologists Ben Crewe, Yvonne Jewkes and Thomas Ugelvik that collects the contributions of various authors seeking to comprehend the nature and character of contemporary punishment. As such, this particular book explores the meanings and perceptions of the sentence through the experience of imprisonment in a group of long-term Scottish prisoners. To accomplish her purpose the author delves into the world of in-depth narrative analysis, and complements it with a thorough literature review that invites dialogue and debate with the arguments discussed. The book nicely balances the specificity that the narrative-focused methodology entails with more general theoretical background on the subject.
However, if the title of the book encompasses its most general topic, it is the subtitle that actually refines the purpose of the author. Being Imprisoned is not about the moment of imprisonment per se; it is not interested in the social life in prison. Rather, the book is interested in the process of making-sense that takes place in the narrative of the prisoners. Conceptually, it is more related to the experience of being sentenced than with detention itself. The understanding of accounts on sanctions, as much as on punishment, adaptation and desistance, but not the life behind bars, are its focus.
The book is divided into six chapters, each one orchestrated to harmonize by the end of the book in the chapter of conclusions, which conveniently differs from the classic formula of summarizing, to settle effectively the results of the previous parts. Thus, the first one introduces the research and describes the participants. This comprised 27 long-term prisoners further divided into three basic groups: men at the start of the sentence; men at the end of their sentence; and a group of men on licence. Such division marks the pace of the argumentation and defines the great variety of results that the author depicts. It is also responsible for allowing the author to shed light on the way that sanctions are experienced differently depending on the stage of detention. Maybe this, along with the idea that there is a difference between the epistemology of sanctions and the way they are experienced, are the most interesting arguments in the book.
The introduction also contextualizes imprisonment in Scotland arguing that in the last three decades it is possible to see a significant improvement of the conditions and safety, as well as a tendency towards a more individualized treatment (that is shown to be failing to address the real needs of the individual, or to provide him with terms of progression) that contrasts with the high national levels of incarceration and inequality.
Subsequently, the second chapter entails a dense travel through the academic contributions on the perceptions of purpose, fairness and the experience of long-term imprisonment. Schinkel concludes that even though the literature has documented how what is legally stated differs from the experience of detention, narratives of detainees are underexplored. However, she also shows that in contrast to the scarcity of approaches on perceptions, long-term imprisonment is well documented. The latter is said to be combining quantitative and qualitative analysis alike, and addressing problems that in the book are seen as crucial for the understanding of prison realities. Engaged with classic literature and novel contributions, the book also explains how the environment of the prison, its legitimacy and the nature of its power are definitive in shaping the experience of imprisonment.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 explicitly explore the narratives of the prisoners. Throughout the book, readers will see the precision condensed in a multiplicity of perceptions and categories that create a well-nourished picture of different points of view present in prisoners. As an analysis of narratives, Schinkel finely constructs a puzzle that connects the wide variety of responses with the different types of inmates and their stage of imprisonment, without losing focus on more general similarities. In this sense, it is interesting to highlight the concept of ‘coping-acceptance’ through which the author describes the perspectives and attitudes of most participants towards their sentence. It is seen as a common practical strategy for bearing with the adversities of imprisonment that cannot be defined solely by the concept of coping, but rather as flowing between this and acceptance.
On the other hand, it is also interesting how by including the views of on licence prisoners Schinkel effectively reaches sensitive points of the imprisonment experiences. When the social bubble of detention bursts and the subject has to face again the complexities of the outside world most on licence participants were said to feel institutionalized and the world seemed even harsher.
Implicitly, the book explores the failure of neo-paternalistic prisons to address the world after prison. By bringing up both the domain of on licence prisoners and those still in prison, Schinkel produces a picture of the experience of being imprisoned that exceeds the walls of prison and points at shifts occurring at different moments of the sentence. The book connects systematic tendencies with subjective experiences. As a critic of prisons Schinkel even goes further by suggesting alternatives. Briefly, they can be summarized into three pieces of advice: make the prison walls porous; effectively individualize support and attention; and finally eliminate the stigma.
While it seems to me that the core results are wrapped up too late and that generalizability is given too few pages, the author does vividly portray prisoner narratives. The voices of prisoners are constantly present. Moreover, as much as the prisoners’ voices are part of the analysis, the author is simultaneously self-reflective and aware of her own positionality. The way Schinkel approached the problem, her situation as woman and researcher, along with several other conditions, play an important part in showing how our understanding of social reality, particularly prison experiences, is much more complicated than anything we might be able to access in a straightforward way.