Overview
The soundscape of prison life is that of constant clangs, bangs and jangles. What is the significance of this cacophonous din to those who live and work with it? This book tells the story of a year spent with a UK prison community, bringing its social world vividly to life for the first time through aural ethnography. Kate Herrity's sensory criminology challenges current thinking on how power is experienced by the imprisoned and the lasting effects of incarceration for all who spend time in these environments.
Full Product Details
Author: Kate Herrity (Cambridge University)
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Imprint: Bristol University Press
ISBN: 9781529229486
ISBN 10: 1529229480
Pages: 210
Publication Date: 15 July 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
General/trade
,
Professional & Vocational
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Availability: Awaiting stock
Reviews
""This book will be a key source as we move forward in seeking to fully understand sound as an aspect of carceral experiences and environments."" Crime, Media, Culture “The book has laid a foundation for future work on penal settings, as well as transitions from community to prison and from prison to community.” The British Journal of Sociology “This is a poignant, at times poetic, book about prison sound but it is also much more. A book that will be of use to criminologists interested in prisons and the pervasive nature of penal power, prison societies and carceral geography.” Punishment & Society “Kate Herrity's research on the sounds of prison life is one of the most vivid – or rather, resonant – new contributions to prison studies in many a long year. It refreshes our feel for what is involved in inhabiting that world as very few other studies have done. Our methods and our concepts for apprehending that reality can never be quite the same again.” Richard Sparks, University of Edinburgh
""This book will be a key source as we move forward in seeking to fully understand sound as an aspect of carceral experiences and environments."" Crime, Media, Culture “Kate Herrity's research on the sounds of prison life is one of the most vivid – or rather, resonant – new contributions to prison studies in many a long year. It refreshes our feel for what is involved in inhabiting that world as very few other studies have done. Our methods and our concepts for apprehending that reality can never be quite the same again.” Richard Sparks, University of Edinburgh
“Kate Herrity's research on the sounds of prison life is one of the most vivid – or rather, resonant – new contributions to prison studies in many a long year. It refreshes our feel for what is involved in inhabiting that world as very few other studies have done. Our methods and our concepts for apprehending that reality can never be quite the same again.” Richard Sparks, University of Edinburgh
Author Information
Kate Herrity is the Mellon-Kings Research Fellow in Punishment at the University of Cambridge.
