Fiddler, Michael ORCID: 0000-0002-0695-6770 and Black, Alli (eds.) (2018) Prison Service Journal - Special edition focusing on 'The Arts in Prison'. Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. ISSN 0300-3558

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Abstract

Let us begin with a single image: Harou-Romain’s Plan for a penitentiary, 1840. If the reader is unfamiliar with the title, they may well know the image itself from the plate section of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. It depicts an imagined view from a cell within Bentham’s Panopticon. The inhabitant of the cell—seemingly unaware of our presence behind them—is kneeling. Theyface outwards, towards the central observation tower. There are several ways in which we can read this particular image. For example, is the figure kneeling in silent penitence or are they engaged in some form of labour? On first being introduced to a poorly reproduced version of this image in an undergraduate lecture some years ago, it struck one of the editors of this special edition as the embodiment of Bentham’s ‘mill to grind rogues honest’. It appeared as though the architecture of the building bore down upon the lone figure. It was the weight of both the physical and conceptual that had brought them to their knees. That editor has written elsewhere about the centrality of this image to their on-going research interests and projects, as well as using it in delivering their own undergraduate lectures. Hopefully the reader will forgive this initial burst of solipsism, but—simply put—you would not be reading this were it not for that image. Of course, it is a truism to say that art has the capacity to transform. We know this. We know that art can challenge and provoke. It can reveal the artist’s self to others, as well as illuminate aspects of the audience’s self to themselves. It allows us to express who we are and who we want to be. This then takes us to the theme of this particular special edition: the arts in prison.

Item Type:	Edited Book
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Prison arts, prison therapy, prison evaluation, aural ethnography
Subjects:	K Law > KD England and Wales
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > School of Law & Criminology (LAC)
Last Modified:	01 Feb 2019 12:44
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/21438

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