Young Men, Masculinities and Imprisonment

Young Men, Masculinities and Imprisonment
Author: Conor Murray
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2023-07-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3031333985

Given the over-involvement of young men in crime and young men’s disproportionally high rates of reoffending, it is surprising that more research has not explored young men’s experiences of prison. This book is based on the findings of a nine-month ethnographic case study of Hydebank Wood College, a young men’s prison in Northern Ireland. It seeks to explore the complexity of gender construction and masculine performance during young adulthood, while also exposing and dissecting the turbulent social life of a young men’s prison. In examining these themes, the book takes account of the unique social, economic, and political factors that impact young men in communities in Northern Ireland, paying particular attention to their feelings of powerlessness, marginalisation, and vulnerability, and the construction of identity in cultures defined by territorialism, violence, masculine stoicism, and an anti-authority code of ‘honour’. The book follows the formation of masculinities through the prison gate and considers how the penal environment contributes to the continual shaping young men’s identities. The book also adopts Gambetta’s concept of ‘signalling’ to examine how young men use different practices, such as language and embodiment, to communicate masculinity to their wider social audience. At the same time, it also considers the reluctance of young men to communicate about their sources of vulnerability.

Male, Failed, Jailed

Male, Failed, Jailed
Author: David Maguire
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2020-11-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030610594

The profile of prisoners across many Western countries is strikingly similar – 95% male, predominantly undereducated and underemployed, from the most deprived neighbourhoods. This book reflects on how similarly positioned men configure masculinities against global economic shifts that have seen the decimation of traditional, manual-heavy industry and with it the disruption of long-established relations of labour. Drawing on life history interviews and classical ethnography, the book charts a group of men’s experiences pre, during and post prison. Tracking the development of masculinities from childhood to adulthood, across impoverished streets, ‘failing’ schools and inadequate state ‘care’, the book questions whether this proved better preparation for serving prison time than working in their local, service-dominated, labour markets. It integrates theories of crime, geography, economics and masculinity to take into account structural and global economic shifts as well as individual long-term perspectives in order to provide a broad examination on pathways to prison and post prison.

Young Men and Masculinities

Young Men and Masculinities
Author: Victor J. Seidler
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1848138059

In this book Victor J Seidler, one of the leading contributors to the growing debate about masculinities, turns his attention to the lives of young men and their understandings of themselves as gendered beings. By contextualizing their experiences and subjectivities within a rapidly globalizing world, Seidler pays particular attention to the impact of the global media. How does the mass circulation of images of men's bodies, desires and sexualities affect their self-perception and behaviours, and how are these images framed within particular histories, cultures and traditions? Questioning universalist theories of 'hegemonic masculinities', the book argues that young men often feel caught between prevailing masculinities and their own struggle for self-definition. It explores both how the idea of men as 'the First Sex' has been established within the West and the ways in which men in other cultures and societies affirm their gendered identities. Seidler pioneers new methodologies that involve listening to the silences surrounding male experience as well as to oral testimonies. This enables innovative analysis of the contradictions young men are faced with in both creating their own gendered identities and establishing more equal relationships within a world of intense inequalities.

Prison Masculinities /edited by Don Sabo, Terry A. Kupers, and Willie London

Prison Masculinities /edited by Don Sabo, Terry A. Kupers, and Willie London
Author: Donald F. Sabo
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2001
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781566398169

This book explores the frightening ways our prisons mirror the worst aspects of society-wide gender relations. It is part of the growing research on men and masculinities. The collection is unusual in that it combines contributions from activists, academics, and prisoners. The opening section, which features an essay by Angela Davis, focuses on the historical roots of the prison system, cultural practices surrounding gender and punishment, and the current expansion of corrections into the "prison-industrial complex." The next section examines the dominant or subservient roles that men play in prison and the connections between this hierarchy and male violence. Another section looks at the spectrum of intimate relationships behind bars, from rape to friendship, and another at physical and mental health. The last section is about efforts to reform prisons and prison masculinities, including support groups for men. It features an essay about prospects for post-release success in the community written by a man who, after doing time in Soledad and San Quentin, went on to get a doctorate in counseling. The contributions from prisoners include an essay on enforced celibacy by Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as fiction and poetry on prison health policy, violence, and intimacy. The creative contributions were selected from the more than 200 submissions received from prisoners. Author note: Don Sabo, Professor of Social Sciences at D'Youville College in Buffalo, is author or editor of five books, most recently, with David Gordon, Men's Health and Illness: Gender, Power, and the Body and, with Michael Messner, Sex, Violence, and Power in Sports: Rethinking Masculinity. Sabo has appeared on The Today Show, Oprah, and Donahue. Terry A. Kupers, M.D., a psychiatrist, teaches at the Wright Institute in Berkeley. He is the author of four books, editor of a fifth. His latest books are Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It and Revisioning Men's Lives: Gender, Intimacy, and Power. Kupers has served as an expert witness in more than a dozen cases on conditions of confinement and mental health services. Willie London, a published poet, is General Editor of the prison publication Elite Expressions. He is currently an inmate at Eastern Corrections. For nine years he was a prisoner at Attica.

Young Men in Prison

Young Men in Prison
Author: Joel Harvey
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1134024991

This book examines how young men between the ages of 18 and 21 adapt practically, socially and psychologically to prison life. Based on extensive research in Feltham Young Offenders Institution, it concentrates both on the successful adaptation to prison life and on the experience of individuals who have difficulties in adapting, paying special attention to those who harm themselves whilst in prison.

New Perspectives on Prison Masculinities

New Perspectives on Prison Masculinities
Author: Matthew Maycock
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2018-02-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319656546

This edited collection utilises recent advances in theories on masculinities to explore and analyse the ways in which prisons shape performances of gender, both within prison settings and following release from prison. The authors assess here how the highly gendered world of the prison (where the population is overwhelmingly male in most countries) impacts upon the performance of masculinities. Including original pieces from England, Australia, Scotland and the USA, as well as contributions which take a broader methodological and conceptual approach to masculinity, this engaging and original collection holds international appeal and relevance. Cumulatively, the chapters illustrate the importance of considering a nuanced understanding of masculinity within prison research, and as such, will be of particular interest for scholars of penology, gender studies, and the criminal justice system.

Young Men’s Experiences of Long-Term Imprisonment

Young Men’s Experiences of Long-Term Imprisonment
Author: Rachel Rose Tynan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2019-01-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351803212

Long sentenced young people are a small but significant part of the juvenile prison population. The current approach to young people convicted of serious crime speaks to wider issues in criminal and social justice, including the idealisation of (some) childhoods, processes of racialisation and identity and the sociology of the body. Analysing the relationships between biography, trauma and habitus reveals the ways in which class, racial and legal status are experienced and resisted. Young Men's Experiences of Long-Term Imprisonment: Living Life considers the need for the reinvigoration of prison ethnography and calls for a phenomenological approach to understanding youth crime and punishment. An insightful ethnographic study on imprisoned 15- to 17-year-olds in England, this volume examines how young people experience long-term imprisonment, manage their time and imagine and shape their futures. Drawing on observations, interviews and correspondence, Tynan situates long-term imprisonment of young men within the wider social context of criminal and social justice; and analyses constructs and practices that locate responsibility for crime with individuals and communities. Young Men's Experiences of Long-Term Imprisonment: Living Life will be of interest to students and researchers interested in the sociology of prisons, punishment and youth justice and qualitative research methodology.

The Palgrave International Handbook of Youth Imprisonment

The Palgrave International Handbook of Youth Imprisonment
Author: Alexandra Cox
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 646
Release: 2021-06-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030687597

This handbook brings together the knowledge on juvenile imprisonment to develop a global, synthesized view of the impact of imprisonment on children and young people. There are a growing number of scholars around the world who have conducted in-depth, qualitative research inside of youth prisons, and about young people incarcerated in adult prisons, and yet this research has never been synthesized or compiled. This book is organized around several core themes including: conditions of confinement, relationships in confinement, gender/sexuality and identity, perspectives on juvenile facility staff, reentry from youth prisons, young people’s experiences in adult prisons, and new models and perspectives on juvenile imprisonment. This handbook seeks to educate students, scholars, and policymakers about the role of incarceration in young people’s lives, from an empirically-informed, critical, and global perspective.

Crime, Criminal Justice and Masculinities

Crime, Criminal Justice and Masculinities
Author: Stephen Tomsen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351570676

This volume features the leading contemporary articles that are part of, or related to, the 'new masculinities' approach in this sphere. These comprise an impressive range of theoretical and empirical work including important cultural and ethnographic analyses. They emphasise the relationship between masculinities, the causes and patterns of most criminal offending and victimisation and the broader workings of the wider criminal justice system of policing (public and private), criminal courts, corrections and prisons. All of the material has been selected from flagship international journals and was produced by a global mix of male and female researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds. These scholars share the view that masculinities are plural, socially constructed, reproduced in the collective social practices of different men and embedded in institutional and occupational settings. Furthermore, masculinities are intricately linked with social struggles for power that occur between men and women and different men. Crime, criminal justice and their cultural representation are key terrain for these masculine contests and are always overlain with issues such as social class, age, race/ethnicity and sexuality.

Transitional Justice and Legacies of State Violence

Transitional Justice and Legacies of State Violence
Author: Lisa White
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2015-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135981175

As politicians, public bodies and non-Governmental organisations continue to profess an interest in making peace with the past, this highly original study explores the motivation, significance and legacy of ‘making public’ experiences of state violence in Northern Ireland. Based on a synthesis of documentary material with the findings from a series of contemporary interviews, this timely book uncovers the reasoning behind many Republican former detainees’ accounts of state violence and torture. It examines the aims of those who ‘went public’ during the conflict and discusses the meaning they attached to their stories and the various responses to them. It also identifies some of the risks involved in criticising the violence of the British State and illuminates the ways in which ‘truths’ are often contested in Northern Ireland - both during the conflict and in the years which have followed. A unique piece of interdisciplinary work, the study disentangles and evaluates the discourses presented by former detainees and makes an innovative and interesting contribution to knowledge about transitional justice and legacies of state violence. The book is suitable for social science scholars interested in human rights, state violence, criminology and transitional justice, as well as those seeking to understand more about experiences of imprisonment and the legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict.