Global Prison Ethnography
The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Ethnography, DH Drake, R Earle and J Sloan (eds), 2015, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
19 Pages Posted: 7 Jul 2015
Date Written: July 2, 2015
Abstract
Prison populations have grown in most European countries over the last few decades. Simultaneously, the prison populations have changed profile considerably in many jurisdictions. The average proportion of foreign nationals prisoners in Western European prison systems is currently 26 per cent. In stark contrast, Eastern European countries normally have very small numbers of foreign national prisoners. The everyday difficulties associated with housing all these foreigners who might have different wants and needs than what one commonly finds among domestic prisoners combined with the ever-growing task of transferring prisoners and deporting newly released former prisoners will be a formidable challenge for European criminal justice systems in years to come. This chapter explores and discusses how prison ethnographers should react to such developments. Inspired by Burawoy’s work on global ethnography, it is an invitation to a global prison ethnography.
Keywords: Prison ethnography, global ethnography, foreign national prisoners
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