Schreeche-Powell, Edwin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5551-9649 (2026) Double liminality: transitional imprisonment and the ambiguities of the Open Prison. Theoretical Criminology. ISSN 1362-4806 (Print), 1461-7439 (Online) (In Press)

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Abstract

Open prisons are imagined as bridges to freedom. This article reconceptualises them as institutions of suspension. Extending penal liminality theory, it advances the concept of double liminality to capture how transitional imprisonment governs through compounded ambiguity. Drawing on qualitative accounts of English open prisons; it theorises a condition where prisoners are suspended between two thresholds: regression and conditional release. Over-institutionalised in sanction yet under-institutionalised in support, the open prison produces institutional ambiguity, fractured identities, and temporal immobilisation. By framing open custody within logics of neoliberal conditionality and responsibilisation, it offers a portable analysis of institutional doubleness, where the demand for autonomy coincides with its denial. It contributes to emerging debates on penal transformation, temporal power, and carceral governance through withdrawal.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	double liminality, open prisons, transitional imprisonment, responsibilisation, institutional withdrawal, temporal suspension, carceral identity
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare K Law > K Law (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences > Centre for Communities and Social Justice Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences > School of Law and Criminology
Last Modified:	16 Mar 2026 17:22
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/52666

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