Overview
Shades of the Prison House explores the history of imprisonment in the British Isles from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. Over the centuries, prisons - from castle dungeons to ""lockups"" to ""penitentiaries"" to gaols -have changed radically in name, conditions, attributes and functions, as well as in their character and rationale. Prisons have served many aims: detention, deterrence, punishment, reformation and rehabilitation, all in varying degrees. Yet while prisons and their purposes have been transformed, the same debates on imprisonment have continually recurred. Concerns about overcrowding and over-pampering, security and safety have been expressed from the very beginning, and modern notions that prison might serve a purpose other than containment or punishment were espoused long before the eighteenth century. Drawing on letters, treatises, personal accounts, histories, legal and official reports and studies of prison architecture and design, this book tells the story of prisons, prison life and those who experienced it, be they prisoners, governors, chaplains, warders, reformers or advocates. As entertainingas it is informative, the book examines the nature and quality of imprisonment over the last fifteen hundred years, before surveying present problems and concluding with thoughts on future directions. HARRY POTTER is a former fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge and a practising barrister specialising in criminal defence. Author of Law, Liberty and the Constitution: A Brief History of the Common Law (Boydell Press, 2015), he wrote and presented an award-winning series on the same subject for the BBC. He has also authored Edinburgh under Siege: 1571-1573 (2003), Blood Feud: The Stewarts and Gordons at War in the Age of Mary Queen of Scots (2002), Hanging and Heresy (1994) and Hanging in Judgment: Religion and the Death Penalty in England from the Bloody Code to Abolition (1993). Before being called to the Bar, he worked as a prison chaplain, largely with long-termand life-sentence prisoners.
Full Product Details
Author: Harry Potter
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Imprint: The Boydell Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.60cm
, Height: 4.30cm
, Length: 23.40cm
Weight: 1.210kg
ISBN: 9781783273317
ISBN 10: 1783273313
Pages: 572
Publication Date: 17 May 2019
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
[An] entertaining, informative narrative...In narrating the rise and fall of penal welfarism in a lively and engaging manner, Shades of Prison House deserves a wide readership. BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE
[An] entertaining, informative narrative...In narrating the rise and fall of penal welfarism in a lively and engaging manner, Shades of Prison House deserves a wide readership. BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE An excellent book.[it] is as informative as it is readable. It ought to be read by anyone interested in the history of prisons, crime, and the `criminal classes'. FACHRS NEWSLETTER I cannot commend this work too highly. As a well-written, witty, academically sound but accessible history of prisons for the general reader it is unsurpassed. CRIMELINE
Author Information
HARRY POTTER is a criminal barrister and the author of Hanging in Judgment: Religion and the Death penalty in England form the Bloody Code to Abolition (1993); Blood Feud: The Stewarts and Gordons at War in the Age of Mary Queen of Scots (2002); and Edinburgh Under Siege (2003). With Boydell & Brewer, he has authored Law, Liberty and the Constitution: A Short History of the Common Law (2015) and Shades of the Prison House: A History of Incarceration in the British Isles (2019).
