A Symposium to Mark the Publication, by New York University Press, of Ian O’Donnell's Prison Life: Pain, Resistance, and Purpose
Author | Rosemary Gido,Derek S. Jeffreys,Cormac Behan,Kimmett Edgar,Bethany E. Schmidt,Gorazd Mesko,Mary K. Stohr,Ashley T. Rubin |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00328855231154500 |
Published date | 01 March 2023 |
Date | 01 March 2023 |
Subject Matter | Articles |
A Symposium to Mark
the Publication, by
New York University
Press, of Ian O’Donnell’s
Prison Life: Pain,
Resistance, and Purpose
Rosemary Gido
1
,DerekS.Jeffreys
2
,
Cormac Behan
3
,KimmettEdgar
4
,
Bethany E. Schmidt
5
,
Gorazd Mesko
6
,MaryK.Stohr
7
,
and Ashley T. Rubin
8
Abstract
Recognizing the major scholarly contributions to criminology by the noted
Irish criminologist, Ian O’Donnell, The Prison Journal invited seven contempo-
rary corrections and punishment scholars to offer insights into O’Donnell’s
new book, Prison Life: Pain, Resistance, and Purpose. Offering contextually rich
descriptions of prisoner life, the text features four case study prisons—H
Blocks, Northern Ireland; Eastham Unit, Texas; Isir Bet, Ethiopia; and
ADX Florence, Colorado, in pivotal time periods and through an individual’s
1
Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the PA Prison Society, Philadelphia, PA, USA
2
University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, WI, USA
3
Technological University Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
4
Prison Reform Trust, London, UK
5
Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
6
University of Maribor, Ljubljana, Slovenia
7
Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA
8
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA
Corresponding Author:
Rosemary Gido, Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the PA Prison Society, 230 S Broad St.,
Suite 605, Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA.
Email: rosemarygido@gmail.com
Article
The Prison Journal
2023, Vol. 103(2) 159–176
© 2023 SAGE Publications
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00328855231154500
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custodial career in each institution. The symposium discussants focus on
O’Donnell’s conceptual framework—the degree of prison integration, system
and staff regulation, and legitimacy—and how these reflect the key interac-
tions between punishment and society across time and culture.
Keywords
Prison Life:Pain, Resistance, and Purpose, Ian O’Donnell, prisoner life,
regulation, integration, legitimacy
The Sociology of Punishment
David Garland, the well-known sociologist and observer of punishment
scholarship trends, recently offered a comprehensive assessment of both the
theoretical advances and problems in the development of the sociological
study of punishment (Garland, 2022). Arguing that the last 40 years have
been most significant in the migration of scholars into the field, he emphasizes
the importance of classical thinkers; in particular, Durkheim, Rusche and
Kirchheimer, Foucault, and Elias, in shaping the 1970s and 1980s ground-
breaking theoretical work of academics like Stan Cohen. With America’s
advancing mass incarceration trend and exceptionalism in global imprison-
ment rates through 2010, Garland notes the movement in sociology of punish-
ment scholarship from conceptualization and theory to a greater interest in
understanding this policy and how to reverse it. Over the past decade, with
scholarly growth in the field fueled by quantification, middle-range theory
development, and a shift away from functionalism’s generalizations,
Garland declares the discipline is advancing—and needs to continue along
this path—toward more localized, specific internal accounts and new theori-
zations coming from rich comparative studies, internationally, nationally, and
regionally (Beckett & Beach, 2021; Lynch, 2009).
The Prison Journal is therefore privileged to “host”this symposium on Ian
O’Donnell’s important new book, Prison Life: Pain, Resistance, and
Purpose. Clearly a catalyst for energizing sociology of punishment scholar-
ship, O’Donnell’s work echoes Garland’s and other scholars’call for novel
frameworks and concepts across prison cultural and political regimes—
away from Anglocentric assumptions and to the study of punishment in the
Global South (Sozzo, 2022)—and toward contrasting prisoners’experiences
of freedom (Mjaland et al., 2021).
O’Donnell has been based at University College Dublin for almost a
quarter century, having previously been Director of the Irish Penal Reform
Trust and a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University. He has made
160 The Prison Journal 103(2)
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