What Are Prisons For?

Angela Davies and Michael Howard make uneasy if compellingly odd bedfellows. In opening the book with a juxtaposition of their pronouncements on the prison, Bhui lays out the ambition of his exploration through expansive terrain to grapple with the thorny and oft-neglected question ‘What are prisons for?’ Clarity and accessibility of writing belie a sharp analysis, and impressive depth and breadth of knowledge. His description of the ‘general chaos’ (p88) of prison life reflects considerable experience and understanding of both the place and its people, honed through years of work as probation officer and inspector both for the inspectorate of England and Wales and the Council of Europe. Bhui demonstrates considerable skill in capturing the moral, historical and socio-political complexity that constitutes our deep attachment to a ‘carceral ideology’ with breathless concision. A skill, I suspect, honed through years of interacting with people more concerned with ‘short-term management’ and too pushed—and perhaps a little disinclined—to read beyond the executive summary. Yet his ambitions for his audience are considerably broader and more diverse than that, acknowledging as he does, the need to avoid reducing these discussions to an echo chamber comprised of people who feel they know far better but are at a considerable remove from those most sharply affected by the vagaries of the criminal justice system. If we are to tackle this ‘tremendously malleable manifestation of state power’ (p138) we must broaden our engagement, he compellingly argues. The accessible writing style reflects this commitment, encouraging the application of an historical sensibility to the understanding of the socio-political contextual intricacies in which ideas around punishment are forged. We cannot address this most urgent and timely question, the author argues, without also attending to the various ideological undercurrents on which the idea of the prison as a means for addressing manifold social issues is kept afloat. Bhui takes us on a journey through comparative penology, and the development of the modern prison in different parts of the world before considering the legacies of the colonial project (both the impact of colonialism and response to post-colonial migration), mass incarceration, racism, the experience of prisoners and where prison might next be bound for. It is in his second chapter ‘a brief history of imprisonment in the West’ that Bhui sets the context for what follows. The history of imprisonment is as much one of ideas frequently bent, albeit with contextual riffs and variations on the theme, to political purpose. The author reflects that he spent considerably more time than intended researching the history of prisons, artfully demonstrating the necessity of attending to the steps that brought us to our current point as a means of questioning, disrupting, even dismantling the ‘power of the prison as an idea’ (p10). A tonic to current inclinations to ahistorical, empty sloganeering, Bhui invites us to sit down to wrestle with the many-tendrilled beast of carceral ideology and the painful experiences of punishing environments, in which it results. Part of the Bristol ‘what is it for?’ series—which aims to provide fresh ideas on the purpose of the most important aspects of our contemporary world—the book comes in at a short 187 pages. The extension of reach this represents far outweighs the hazards of brevity but there were times when breadth threatened to compromise considered analysis. I was less convinced, for example, by the fleeting reference to prison as ‘university of crime’ theory as a means of accounting for recidivism. This uncharacteristically scant and uncritical treatment of an oft-repeated trope rather contradicted the overarching entreaty of the book, to think with care and reject trite solutions to a profoundly troubling facet of modern life. Despite the commitment to presenting various aspects of expertise and experience, in inviting the reader to engage with these difficult questions, the author prompts wider participation in that most venerated but sticky of academic practices, asking difficult questions without the confidence of establishing any easy answers. Understanding how we got here, however, is fundamental to conceiving of a suitably complex set of proposals to get us out; to ‘dismantle the power of prison as an idea’ (p10), along with the opaque apparatus of the prison industrial complex (p75) in which it is made manifest. This is an essential read for practitioners and for students on prisons and penology, and an exemplar for writing with contextual sensitivity and historical sensibility. It is also a masterful introduction to the complexity of our prisons for anyone who has had more than a passing thought about what happens beyond the walls. As I close the cover on this refreshingly direct and urgent call to reflection, I cannot help wondering if the author is any further to arriving at his answer. His own account would seem to indicate writing the book has served the rather more ambiguous purpose of acclimating him to the idea that exploring the deep complexity of the issue is a noble pursuit, as well as one fundamental to the project of improvement. Nevertheless, his invitation to join him in asking the question is an urgent one. As he says ‘critical thinking is sensible, but fatalism and lack of ambition is not…'