Asian Criminology (2006) 1: 97–98 DOI 10.1007/s11417-006-9008-6 BOOK REVIEW

Ironies of Imprisonment, Michael Welch Sage, London, UK. 2005, ISBN 0-7619-3059-0, 256 pages, £27.00 (paperback) Azrini Wahidin

Published online: 17 August 2006 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2006

This book brings to the reader in an accessible and engaging way questions of central concern to criminologists, politicians, penal reformists, and policy makers, namely: what are prisons for?; what purpose do they serve?; under what conditions should prisoners be held? The book focuses on imprisonment in the United States of America and is aptly titled: Ironies of Imprisonment. Michael Welch, begins by stating that America believes it is the ‘defender of human freedom’, although it operates a penal system that denies freedom to a greater proportion of its citizens than any other democratic nation globally. By challenging this claim he shows why, in the United States of America, the prison population has reached 2.1 million. He addresses why the male prison population is disproportionately represented by Latinos and African Americans and highlights why prison will become the home to almost one-third of all black men during their lifetime. This means that one in 75 men is in prison and one black man in nine is placed under the criminal gaze (Wacquant, 2005). Welch structures the ten chapters linearly, each building on the previous one, and each chapter provides an analysis of how the broader societal problems influence the rate of imprisonment. He begins with grounding the reader in the historical development of the penitentiary and the asylum. He provides the reader with the conceptual and theoretical cornerstones of critical penology by examining the work of Bentham, Rusche and Kircheimer, and Foucault, through to the development of Anarchist criminology. Furthermore, he critically analyses the war on drugs, the lack of health care provision, prison violence, capital punishment, ‘three strikes’ and the war on terrorism. Moreover, under each chapter heading, he begins with a poignant incident or a case study of either what led to the crime or how the criminal justice system has affected the individual’s life, highlighting the futility of the time spent behind bars. It is by using poignant case studies that Welch reveals the ironies of imprisonment. This book achieves its aim in demonstrating that the prison enterprise is inhumane and unjust in its delivery of justice. It is by using the case studies that he shows how the discourse of rehabilitation becomes lost in the process of warehousing the poor and the A. Wahidin (*) Centre for Criminal Justice Policy and Research, University of Central England, Birmingham, UK e-mail: [email protected]

98

Asian Criminology (2006) 1: 97–98

socially excluded. The epiphenomenal consequences of imprisonment have led to reduced state budgets for other spending such as on welfare, health and education. This collateral damage caused by mass imprisonment (for a further discussion see Garland, 2001) goes beyond the recognised effects of sentencing. Yet, there is a silence around the perverse consequences of imprisonment—a general malaise around the way of thinking or not thinking about imprisonment. Although, throughout the world, we are sporting an expansionist prison policy, Jackson, writing in 1972, pertinently argues that, “The ultimate expression of law is not order—it’s prison. We have hundreds upon hundreds of prisons, and thousands upon thousands of laws, yet there is no social order, no social peace” (p. 205). Running throughout the book is the theme that, although the prison in various guises has survived for over 200 years and has been a dominant institution in society, there is “no social order and no social peace (ibid)”. Welch questions our over-reliance on imprisonment and this apparent belief that this apparatus of social order and social control is indispensable to the modern world. Welch raises the question of whether we, as a society, can find a different and more humane strategy for responding to phenomena as socially complex and controversial as crime and punishment. Welch sets out to explore the ironies of imprisonment in numerous prison policies and practices. He achieves this by cogently arguing throughout the book the inconsistencies and contradictions of imprisonment.

References Garland, D. (2001). Mass Imprisonment: Social Causes and Consequences. London: Sage. Jackson, G. (1972). Blood in My Eye. London: Penguin Books. Wacquant, L. (2005). The great penal leap backward: Incarceration in America from Nixon to Clinton. In J. Pratt, D. Brown, M. Brown, S. Hallsworth & W. Morrison (Eds.), The New Punitiveness: Trends, Theories, Perspectives. Cullompton, Devon: Willan.