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) (doi:10.1177/13624806261491968)

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Abstract

This analysis reconceptualises open prisons as institutions of suspension rather than bridges to freedom. Extending penal liminality theory, it advances the concept of double liminality to explain how ‘transitional imprisonment’—custody whose boundary remains permeable in both directions—governs through compounded ambiguity. Drawing on qualitative research in English open prisons, the study theorises how prisoners are suspended between two thresholds: regression to closed prison conditions and conditional release. Over-institutionalised in sanction yet under-institutionalised in support, open prisons generate three dimensions of suspended experience, namely, institutional ambiguity, fractured identity, and temporal suspension, operating as a governance technique. By framing open custody within the logics of neoliberal conditionality and responsibilisation, the study offers a framework for analysing institutional doubleness, where the demand for autonomy coincides with its denial. It contributes to emerging debateson penal transformation, temporal power, and carceral governance through withdrawal

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This study received ethical approval from the University of Kent Institutional Review Board (approval 16012020ESP) on 16 January 2020.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	double liminality, open prisons, transitional imprisonment, responsibilisation, institutional withdrawal, temporal suspension, carceral identity, neoliberal conditionality
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) K Law > K Law (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences > School of Law and Criminology
Last Modified:	28 Sep 2026 10:28
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/54482

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