CRI-30044 - Module Specification
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

This module explores the central role which prisons play in society, both as institutions which dominate the contemporary punitive network, and as places which absorb our social and cultural imagination.
Lectures may include:
Revisiting the prison crisis
1. The current state of our prisons
2. Popular and political representations of prisons
Prison community
3. Doing prison work
4. Prisoner communities
5. Riots and resistance in prison
6. Radicalisation and political imprisonment
Prisons and inequality
7. The gendered pains of imprisonment
8. Race, ethnicity and imprisonment
9. Youth/Children in prison
Penal futures
10. The penal-industrial complex
11. Prison reform and abolition
12. Life after imprisonment

The aims of the module are to:
Provide an overview of the central debates and controversies relating to the purpose of imprisonment and the role of the modern prison;
Develop an understanding of the political, cultural and social importance of imprisonment as a centrepiece of contemporary punishment;
Understand the effects of imprisonment on key actors in the prison system, such as prisoners, staff and non-correctional personnel;
Understand the effects of custody on individuals, their families and communities, and society at large;
Explore the relationship between imprisonment and inequality;
Critically engage with the major criminological and social scientific contributions in the area of imprisonment.

Intended Learning Outcomes

1
1
1
1

Study hours

12 x 1 hour weekly sessions comprising lecture-style tutor-led learning,
12 x 1 hour per student per week of workshop exercises comprising screenings, tutor led group debates, Padlet and interactive discussions in groups of up to 40 (the maximum permitted for interactive lecture formats).
12 x 2 hours of session specific preparation in advance of each session.
102 Hours of Personal study (including work for summative assessments).

School Rules

Students taking this module must have successfully completed one of the following modules:
CRI-10015 Punishment: beyond the public imagination
OR
CRI-10013 Criminal Justice: process, policy, practice.
OR
CRI-20020 Research methods in Criminology

Description of Module Assessment