News

Euro MQPL +: Alison Liebling, Deborah Kant and Katherine Auty hosted a two-day symposium at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in November 2023, to support teams from five countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and the US) to adapt and use MQPL surveys to help steer reform efforts in their prison systems. The teams all presented their results from base…

The members of the selection committee for the Institute of Criminology's annual Nigel Walker Prize, have awarded this year’s prize to Dr Bethany Schmidt, a member of the Prisons Research Centre for her PhD:‘Democratising Democracy: Reimagining Prisoners as Active Citizens Through Participatory Governance’.The Nigel Walker Prize is awarded for an o…

A new edition ofPower and Pain in the Modern Prison: The Society of Captives Revisited (2022) Oxford: Clarendon, edited by Professor Ben Crewe, Andrew Goldsmith and Mark Halsey has recently been published.This edition contains highly engaging discussion of challenges faced in prison life, such as staff-prisoner relationships and control; it revisit…

Bethany Schmidt has been awarded a Cambridge University Public Engagement Starter Fund. Bethany, in collaboration with Healthier Democracies, will facilitate three workshops with prisoners to reflect on and document the democratic innovations they have developed whilst incarcerated. Mixed media creative expressions around the meanings of ‘citizensh…

Dr Susie Hulley and Dr Serena Wright (Royal Holloway) had participated in the first CLiNKS event series: 'Working with Life Prisoners: What the evidence tells us', where they discussed their research on men and women serving life sentences in prison from an early age.You can watch a recording of this event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHix…

Professor Ben Crewe, and Dr Susie Hulley have both recently participated in the Prison Radio Association's  podcast series: 'The Secret Life of Prisons'.The Secret Life of Lifers: Part 1: What is it like to receive a life sentence?(1 November 2021)In this podcast the hosts we're joined by two people who have had this experience - both have been to …

Professor Ben Crewe has been interviewed for the BBC Radio 4 programme Thinking Allowed about the book he co-wrote with Dr Susie Hulley and Dr Serena Wright, on life imprisonment from young adulthood.The programme will be broadcast on Wednesday 21 April at 4.00pm, and after that will be available to listen to on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/pro…

Friday 12 February, 7.00pm - 8.00pm (GMT)This virtual book launch is being held to celebrate the publication (on Monday 8 February) of the new book:Sensory Penalities: Exploring the Senses in Spaces of Punishment and Social Control, edited by Kate Herrity, Bethany E. Schmidt, and Jason Warr.This is a free ticketed event, and you can reserve your ti…

In November, Ben Crewe and Alice Ievins, and Alison Liebling, gave papers at the inaugural conference of the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Alberta (Twitter @CCR_UofA) , titled: 'Tightness, misrecognition and penal power' and 'Does trust matter in prisons?', respectively.Video recordings of their panel presentations can be …

Understanding Life ImprisonmentIn this Justice Focus podcast  Professor Ben Crewe chats to Omar Phoenix Khan about his recent book, 'Life Imprisonment from Young Adulthood: Adaption, Identity and Time', co-authored with Dr Susie Hulley and Dr Serena Wright, which analyses the experiences of prisoners in England and Wales sentenced when relatively y…

Dr Bethany Schmidt, with Dr Kate Herrity and Dr Jason Warr, have co-edited:Sensory Penalties: Exploring the Senses in Spaces of Punishment and Social Control (Emerald Publishing), which is due to be published in February 2021.The book is available to buy here: https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Sensory-Penalities/?k=9781839097270)You can …

Professor Ben Crewe has been interviewed for the Growth Uncut podcast: 'Humanity, Pain and Growth'.In this interview he discusses his views on growth within the context of his research around life sentences, and discusses the themes of power, pain and relationships and their association with growth and personal development.

Professor Ben Crewe, Dr Susie Hulley and Dr Serena Wright’s book:‘Life Imprisonment from Young Adulthood’ was published in January 2020.It is available to buy here: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137566003A recording of their online launch event can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKR1ySvmDFM&feature=youtu.be

The PRC Annual Report 2020 is available to download here.

Appreciative Inquiry and the moral performance of prisons Apple Podcasts: http://tinyurl.com/JF-AppleSpotify: http://tinyurl.com/JF-SpotifyAnchor: http://tinyurl.com/JF-AnchorClick here for Alison’s Social Science Bites podcast interview: https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2018/05/alison-liebling-on-successful-prisons/Alison Liebling, Professor of …