Professor Ben Crewe

Penal policymaking and the prisoner experience: A comparative analysis

I have recently completed a five-year European Research Council consolidator grant, worth just under €2 million, 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.

Publications arising from the study so far include the following:

• Crewe, B., Mjåland, K., & Laursen, J. (2023) ‘Comparing Deep-end confinement in England & Wales and Norway’. Criminology, 61(2), 204-233 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1745-9125.12326
• Crewe, B., Schliehe, A., & Przybylska, D. (2022) ‘‘It causes a lot of problems’: relational ambiguities an ddynamics between prisoners and staff in a women’s prison’- European Journal of Criminology. 20(3), 925–946.
• Crewe, B., Mjåland, K., & Laursen, J. (2023) ‘Comparing deep-end confinement in England & Wales and Norway’. Criminology, 61(2) 204-233.
• Crewe, B., Ievins, A., Larmour, S., Laursen, J., Mjåland, K., & Schliehe, A. (2022) ‘Nordic penal exceptionalism: a comparative, empirical analysis’. British Journal of Criminology azac013, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azac013
• Schliehe, A., & Crewe, B. (2021) ‘Top-bunk, bottom-bunk: the experience of cell-sharing in prisons’. British Journal of Criminology, 62(2), 484-500. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab053
• Schliehe, A., Laursen, J., & Crewe, B. (2021) ‘Loneliness in prison’. European Journal of Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1477370820988836
• Ievins, A., & Mjåland, K, (2021) ‘Authoritarian exclusion and laissez-faire inclusion: Comparing the punishment of men convicted of sex offenses in England & Wales and Norway’. Criminology, 59(3) August 202, p 454-479 https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12276
• Ievins, A. (2020) ‘Perfectly individualized and constantly visible’? Lateral tightness in a prison holding men convicted of sex offences. Incarceration https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2632666320936433
• Crewe, B. (2020) ‘The depth of imprisonment’. Punishment & Society. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1462474520952153
• Crewe, B., & Ievins, A. (2020) ‘Tightness, recognition and penal power’. Punishment & Society https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1462474520928115
• Laursen, J., Mjåland, K., & Crewe, B. (2019) ‘“It’s like a sentence before the sentence”—exploring the pains and possibilities of waiting for imprisonment’. British Journal of Criminology, 60(2), 363-381 https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/60/2/363/5529487
• Crewe, B., & Ievins, A. (2019) ‘The prison as a reinventive institution’. Theoretical Criminology https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362480619841900

Life-imprisonment from young adulthood

Along with Dr Susie Hulley (University of Cambridge) and Dr Serena Wright (Royal Holloway, University of London), I recently completed a study of prisoners serving very long sentences from an early age. Funded by the ESRC, this project was a longitudinal follow-up of the research we undertook from 2013-2016, in which we interviewed just under 150 male and female prisoners serving life sentences with tariffs of fifteen years or more, sentenced when aged 25 or under. We also collected over 300 surveys from a wider group of individuals who met these criteria, in 25 establishments overall, including young offender institutions, high-security prisons, category B and C prisons, and open prisons. Our key objectives were to understand:

(a) the main problems encountered by these prisoners, and the ways in which they dealt with these problems

(b) how prisoners serving such sentences build a life for themselves while imprisoned for such long periods

(c) the degree to which such prisoners consider their predicament to be legitimate or illegitimate, and the impact of such perceptions on adaptation, compliance and resistance.

For the most recent part of the study we re-interviewed all of our original participants, to find out what has gone on since our initial interview. In particular, we were interested in changes in self-identity, coping strategies, orientations to both the sentence and the offence, and relationships within and beyond the prison. Around 30 of our original interviewees have now been released into the community on life licence, so we were also looking to find out about their experiences of release.

The main publications that have arisen from this study so far include:

Crewe, B., Hulley, S. and Wright, S. (2020) Life Imprisonment from Young Adulthood: Adaptation, Identity and Time. London: Palgrave Macmillan

The book has been reviewed in a number of journals:

Theoretical Criminology: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362480620944618?journalCode=tcra;

Punishment & Society: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474520928132;

British Journal of Criminology: https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/60/5/1389/5823079

• Crewe, B. (2023) ‘Sedative coping, contextual maturity and institutionalisation among prisoners serving life sentences in England & Wales’. British Journal of Criminology
• Wright, S., Hulley, S., & Crewe, B. (2022) ‘Trajectories of hope and fatalism in the late stage of a life sentence’. Theoretical Criminology https://doi.org/10.1177%2F13624806211067770
• Wright, S., Hulley, S., & Crewe, B. (in press) ‘The pains of life imprisonment during late adolescence and emerging adulthood’, in Abrams, L. and Cox, A. (eds) Handbook on Young People and imprisonment. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Crewe, B., Hulley, S., & Wright, S (2019) ‘What should happen to people who commit murder’, in Fox, A. and Frater, A. (eds.) Crime and Consequence, 281-287
• Hulley, S., Crewe, B., & Wright, S. (2019) Making sense of ‘Joint Enterprise’ for murder: legal legitimacy or instrumental acquiescence? British Journal of Criminology, 59(6), 1328-1346
• Crewe, B., Hulley, S., & Wright, S. (2019) ‘Long-term imprisonment from young adulthood’, National Offender Management Service analytic summary. www.gov.uk
• Crewe, B., Hulley, S., & Wright, S. (2017) ‘The gendered pains of life imprisonment’, British Journal of Criminology. 57(6), 1359-1378 https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/57/6/1359/2877142
• Wright, S., Crewe, B., & Hulley, S. (2016) 'Suppression, denial, sublimation: Defending against the intitial pains of very long life sentences’. Theoretical Criminology, 21(2), 225-246 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362480616643581
• Crewe, B., Hulley, S., & Wright, S. (2016) ‘Swimming with the tide: adapting to long-term imprisonment’, Justice Quarterly. 34(3), 517-541 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07418825.2016.1190394
• Hulley, S., Crewe, B., & Wright, S. (2016) 'Re-examining the problems of long-term imprisonment'. British Journal of Criminology, 56(4), 769-792. https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/56/4/769/2747212?redirectedFrom=fulltext
• Crewe, B., Liebling, A., Padfield, N., & Virgo, G. (2015) ‘Joint Enterprise: the implications of an unfair and unclear law’. Criminal Law Review Issue 4, 252-269

Values, Practices and outcomes in public and private corrections

From 2007-2010, Ben was co-investigator with Professor Alison Liebling of an ESRC-funded study of values, practices and outcomes in public and private corrections.

The study had two main components:

(1) a comparative evaluation of quality of life, culture and practices in five private sector and two public sector prisons, in England and Wales; and

(2) around 90 interviews with senior managers working in the public and private sectors, focussing in particular on professional values and motivations.