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Comparative Penology

Institute of Criminology
 

Normal or nurturing: what should prison designers aspire to?

The word ‘normalisation’ has become ubiquitous in discussions of prison reform. At the recent annual conference of the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA) – a six-day gathering attended largely by managers from the private and public sectors, prison planners, architects and (on this occasion, as it was held in London) senior personnel from HMPPS – it seemed that hardly a paper was given without grand claims being made about custodial environments becoming more ‘normalised’ and therefore, it was said, more likely to rehabilitate offenders. 

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logo The Comparative Penology Group is led by Dr Ben Crewe and his research team who, since 2016, have been working on a five-year project titled: 'Penal policymaking and the prisoner experience: a comparative analysis'.

The research is based in England & Wales, and Norway, and involves four inter-related studies of (a) penal policymaking and the penal field (b) the experience of entry into and release from custody (c) the daily experiences of female prisoners and imprisoned sex offenders, and (d) prisoners in the most secure parts of each jurisdiction's prison system.

This project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC).

  

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