Description
The Real Pain of Punishment explores the true pains of incarceration using insights from empirical sciences and people with lived prison experiences. The book highlights the concept of 'belonging' as an unprecedented lens for critically interrogating the legitimacy of incarceration across penal theory, sentencing practice, and human rights frameworks. The chapters chart pathways for bridging the gap between the normative idea of punishment and the stark realities of prison life. The final chapter, written with scholars currently and formerly incarcerated in a New York State facility, reflects on how embracing belonging within penal approaches can inform responses to harm grounded in humanization, proximity, empowerment, and collaboration. With this chapter and more, the book, advances a call for deeper epistemic dialogue within legal discourse on crime, punishment, and justice. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available open access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Adam Kolber; 1. Penal pain; 2. The specter of prison pain; 3. Prison pains exposed; 4. Prison, social pain, and the need to belong; 5. From liberty to belonging; 6. (E)Limi(na)ting pain, embracing belonging – what would justice look like? with Michael Shane Hale, Salahuddin Tayden Townsley, Raymond A. Wallace, Jr., Paul Cortez and Mujahideen Muhammad; Epilogue.
