Sound, Order and Survival in Prison - by Kate Herrity (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the British Society of Criminology Annual Book Prize 2024.

The soundscape of prison life is that of constant clangs, bangs and jangles. What is the significance of this cacophonous din to those who live and work with it? This book tells the story of a year spent with a UK prison community, bringing its social world vividly to life for the first time through aural ethnography.

Kate Herrity's sensory criminology challenges current thinking on how power is experienced by the imprisoned and the lasting effects of incarceration for all who spend time in these environments.

Review Quotes

"This is a poignant, at times poetic, book about prison sound but it is also much more. A book that will be of use to criminologists interested in prisons and the pervasive nature of penal power, prison societies and carceral geography." Punishment & Society

"Herrity not only maps new terrain but also begins to develop the language needed to study it. Her book offers a novel framework for analyzing incarceration and a methodological invitation to attend more closely to the sensory dimensions of institutional life, and to listen where sociology has too often remained silent." Symbolic Interaction

"The book has laid a foundation for future work on penal settings, as well as transitions from community to prison and from prison to community." The British Journal of Sociology

"Kate Herrity's research on the sounds of prison life is one of the most vivid - or rather, resonant - new contributions to prison studies in many a long year. It refreshes our feel for what is involved in inhabiting that world as very few other studies have done. Our methods and our concepts for apprehending that reality can never be quite the same again." Richard Sparks, University of Edinburgh

"This book will be a key source as we move forward in seeking to fully understand sound as an aspect of carceral experiences and environments." Crime, Media, Culture

About the Author

Kate Herrity is the Mellon-Kings Research Fellow in Punishment at the University of Cambridge.