Prison Violence - (Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology) by Kate Gooch (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This book analyses the nature, causes, logic, and culture of prison victimisation in an English young offender institution for young men aged 18-21 years old. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative research, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of the gendered, situational, individual, and moral components of prison victimisation. It explores how wider technological, economic, policy, political, and cultural changes have altered the texture and structure of prison life and prison violence, and with what consequences. Ultimately, the book argues that high levels of prison violence are not inevitable. Rather, the prevention of prison violence requires a just, lawful, humane, and hopeful environment, and failing to create such is tragically life-changing for young prisoners.

From the Back Cover

Prison Violence: The Search for Recognition and Respect tackles some of the most urgent issues around masculinity and violence that not only blight our prison system, but run deep within society. In this book, Kate Gooch demonstrates the breadth of her knowledge, considerable experience, and hard-won expertise. It is surely destined to become a 'classic' of prison sociology. - Yvonne Jewkes, Professor of Criminology, University of Bath.

In this vivid, meticulous and important book, Kate Gooch investigates the place of violence in the lives of young men in British prisons in unflinching yet compassionate detail. Gooch's sobering conclusions are not without hope. What seems most intractable now - the stripping of recognition and respect that underpins that violence - is nevertheless not inevitable, if addressed with the steady radicalism that Gooch's analysis demands. - Richard Sparks, Professor of Criminology, University of Edinburgh.

In Prison Violence: The Search for Recognition and Respect, Kate Gooch takes the reader on a startlingly accurate journey through prisons for young men and the impact of imprisonment on them and their impact on those that live and work alongside them. For those of us working in prisons this isn't always comfortable reading, but it is a perspective and insight that cannot be ignored. - Tom Wheatley, President of the Prison Governors' Association.

This book analyses the nature, causes, logic, and culture of prison victimisation in an English young offender institution for young men aged 18-21 years old. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative research, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of the gendered, situational, individual, and moral components of prison victimisation. It explores how wider technological, economic, policy, political, and cultural changes have altered the texture and structure of prison life and prison violence, and with what consequences. Ultimately, the book argues that high levels of prison violence are not inevitable. Rather, the prevention of prison violence requires a just, lawful, humane, and hopeful environment, and failing to create such is tragically life-changing for young prisoners.

Kate Gooch is Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Bath, UK.

About the Author

Kate Gooch is Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Bath, UK.