Imprisonment and Justice (Level 5)

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 5
• Convenor: Professor Sarah Lamble
• Assessment: to be confirmed

Punishment through imprisonment arguably serves as the lynchpin of modern western criminal justice systems. Despite the limitations of imprisonment as a mechanism for crime control and the high social and economic costs of confinement, prisons remain a core feature within advanced liberal democracies. As prison populations in the UK and elsewhere continue to grow at unprecedented levels, the role of penalty continues to expand, raising key questions about the relationship between imprisonment, law, democracy and justice.

In this module we explore the purpose, limits and consequences of imprisonment within western legal systems. Situating the modern prison within its broader social, historical, political and economic context, we will examine contemporary trends, theories and debates on penal policy in Britain and other liberal democracies. We also explore key social and legal issues arising from imprisonment by:

• assessing the theoretical, philosophical and empirical justifications for imprisonment
• examining key legal policy debates
• evaluating challenges of penal reform
• exploring alternatives.

Indicative syllabus

• Mass imprisonment and the crisis of penality
• Putting the penal crisis in perspective: history and origins
• Prison demographics: inequality, discrimination and criminalisation
• Justifying punishment: theory and practice
• Explaining punishment: divergent perspectives on prison expansion
• Neoliberalism, privatisation and the Prison Industrial Complex
• Immigration detention, borders and 'illegality'
• Disability, imprisonment and psychiatric detention
• Beyond the walls: the social and fiscal costs of imprisonment
• Alternatives to prison: the reform versus abolition debate