Routledge The Arts of Imprisonment: Control, Resistance and Empowerment (Advances in Criminology Series)

The arts - spanning the visual, design, performing, media, musical, and literary genres - constitute an alternative lens through which to understand state-sanctioned punishment and its place in public consciousness. Perhaps this is especially so in the case of imprisonment: its nature, its functions, and the ways in which these register in public perceptions and desires, have historically and to some extent inherently been intertwined with the arts. But the products of this intertwinement have by no means been constant or uniform. Indeed, just as exploring imprisonment and its public meanings through the lens of the arts may reveal hitherto obscured instances of social control within or outside prisons, so too it may uncover a rich and possibly inspirational archive of resistance to them. This edited collection sheds light both on state use of the arts for the purposes of controlling prisoners and the broader public, and the use made of the arts by prisoners and portions of the broader public as tools of resistance to penal states. The book also includes a number of chapters that address arts-in-prisons programmes, making distinctive contributions to the literature on their philosophy, formation, operation, effectiveness, and research evaluation, as well as taking care to explore the politics surrounding and underpinning these multiple themes. Review Prize: Winner of the 2015 Outstanding Critical Criminal Justice Scholar Award, awarded by the Critical Criminal Justice Section of the American Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences 'for distinguished accomplishments in critical criminal justice scholarship across the most recent two-year period'. Winner of the 2014 Best Public Intellectual Special Issue Award, American Council of Learned Journals Leonidas K. Cheliotis was awarded the ASC 2013 Critical Criminologist of the Year Award. ’'...essential for all practitioners and scholars who engage in prison arts programming and those who study prisons with any eye toward the qualitative life experiences of incarcerated people.’ Critical Criminology 'What is apparent throughout the book is that relationships between the arts and imprisonment are extremely varied. This is a rich and fascinating collection that is highly recommended to both academics and practitioners in this field’ British Journal of Criminology 'This edited collection has extraordinary breadth and depth, covering a range of critical issues for arts in prisons. It successfully provides a series of accounts that are largely sociologically grounded but also in touch with the messy and complicated business of nurturing arts in prisons. This is a rich and fascinating collection that is highly recommended to both academics and practitioners in this field’ Crime, Media, Culture 'The Arts of Imprisonment explores every connection that the title suggests, from the architecture specially designed to disenchant the imprisoned to the creative powers that some prisoners have been able to summon in the face of systematic oppression. A serious contribution to the prisons' literature.' Rod Morgan, University of Bristol, UK and former Chairman of the Youth Justice Board and HM Chief Inspector of Probation, UK 'This timely and stimulating collection addresses a long-neglected topic of great importance. It concerns not only the production of artwork by people About the Author Leonidas K. Cheliotis is Lecturer in Criminology and Deputy Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice at the School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London, UK. In 2015 he was awarded the Outstanding Critical Criminal Justice Scholar Award, given annually by the Critical Criminal Justice Section of the American Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences 'for distinguished accomplishments in critical criminal justice scholarship across the most recent two-year period'. He was awarded the ASC 2013 Critical Criminologist of the Year Award ’for distinguished accomplishments in research which h