Case study reveals prison regulation constructs problems through discourse and practices, highlighting dangers of reconfiguration.
Prison regulation is commonly conceptualised as an independent factfinding and assessment exercise, providing vital oversight and accountability. Drawing on an original analysis of 51 reports and 14 interviews, that informed our case study of prison regulation in England and Wales, we argue that prison regulation is more productively understood as a site of problematisation . Following this approach, we explore four central questions: (a) how does regulatory discourse construct the problems of imprisonment? (b) how do socio-material regulatory practices shape problem construction? (c) how might practices of problem articulation be reconfigured? (d) what are the potential dangers of this reconfiguration? We demonstrate that, currently, prison regulators in England and Wales present problems primarily as accumulations of localised deficiencies within establishments, displacing essential questions about prisons’ functions and effectiveness. Our broader contribution lies in offering a novel and productive framework for evaluating prison regulation internationally.
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Kemp et al. (2026) studied this question.
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