This article explores continuities and discontinuities between two kinds of death in punishment: ... more This article explores continuities and discontinuities between two kinds of death in punishment: of death as punishment and of death as the specified detritus of punishment, life without parole (LWOP). It traces the parallel lives and equivalencies between life and death in penal policy and practice in the US, and attendant narratives of harshness/mildness, and compromises and covenants with pasts and futures. The discourse of death that has sustained the survival of the death penalty in the US has found a home in LWOP. It argues that spectacles and memorialisations of injustice, error and pain circumscribed in the judicial and popular discourse of death as different provide spaces for reflection on dignity and cruelty, spaces in which the loss of life and liberty can be grieved, a subversive politics of mourning (Butler 2004) for those whom punishment had deemed dispensable. As the death penalty is exchanged for LWOP, reform strategies need to reimagine and recapture these spaces for grieving, and understanding the death work of LWOP in US penal politics is crucial to this endeavour.
Introduction: The Deathscapes of Incarceration This special issue is dedicated to reflections on ... more Introduction: The Deathscapes of Incarceration This special issue is dedicated to reflections on the deathscapes of incarceration, bringing together contributions that explore death either as an unintentional result of incarceration, or as its probable or inevitable consequence. Deathscapes in recent work by human geographers encompass 'places associated with death and for the dead and their meanings and associations' (Maddrell & Sidaway, 2012, p. 5). Imprisonment can be said to be one of those sites/conditions where death and bereavement are intensified; for those inside (especially the vulnerable, old, ill or life prisoners) the spacetime of prison (see Moran, 2012) is inscribed with the prospect of death, the contemplation of death and with the deaths of others. In some contexts (such as Life without Parole and life limited sentences) prisons are also part of a penal deathscape, marking the production of naturalized death in punishment and the memoralisation of life and death in penal hell holes in popular culture (Jewkes, 2014).
This paper considers one 'vigilante' episode in an English town in 1993 and its subsequen... more This paper considers one 'vigilante' episode in an English town in 1993 and its subsequent appearances in the press and in local 'crime-talk'. In so doing it a) proposes as an alternative to most current constructions of 'fear of crime' an interpretive approach grounded in place; b) considers the intersections between the generic 'law and order' preoccupations of the national press and the salience in local knowledge of a particular sequence of events (and their consequences for their dramatis personae); c) raises conjecturally some preconditions favouring the adoption of the 'vigilante' option amongst available styles of security-seeking action. Theoretically, the paper demonstrates the relevance of locally-circulating stories of crime and low-level street disorder to the contemporary understanding of crime, place and community.
In their interviews with children, Richard Sparks, Evi Girling and Marion Smith revealed some com... more In their interviews with children, Richard Sparks, Evi Girling and Marion Smith revealed some commonly held notions about punishment.
Looking Death in the Face’: The Benetton Death Penalty Campaign
Punishment & Society-international Journal of Penology, 2004
This article focuses on the controversial 'We on death row&a... more This article focuses on the controversial 'We on death row' campaign launched by Benetton in January 2000. The campaign featured photographic images of prisoners from death rows in the USA. The campaign, which has been dismissed by Austin Sarat as an old and failing abolitionist strategy, poses a number of challenges for our under- standing and assessments of the potential
... need to discover a vocabulary and a way of inquiry capable of tracing the connections ... cap... more ... need to discover a vocabulary and a way of inquiry capable of tracing the connections ... capacious nature of the category 'crime' also means that such conversations have no necessary stopping ... We deal with these proximate things also in the shadow of the knowledge that 'crime ...
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