Reconceptualizing multisectoral prison regulation: Voluntary organizations and bereaved families as regulators

Tomczak, Philippa

Abstract

Prison health, prisoner safety and imprisonment rates matter: intrinsically and for health and safety outside. Existing prison regulation apparatuses (e.g. OPCAT) are extensive and hold unrealised potential to shape imprisonment. However, criminologists have not yet engaged much with this potential. In this article, I reconceptualise prison regulation by exploring the work of a broad range of multisectoral regulators who operate across stakeholder groups. I illustrate that voluntary organisations and families bereaved by prison suicide act as regulators, although their substantive actions have been erased from official narratives. Mobilising (threats of) litigation, these actors have responsibilised the state and brought qualitative changes across the prison estate.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 25, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jan 31, 2021
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jan 22, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 31, 2021
• Journal: Theoretical Criminology
• Print ISSN: 1362-4806
• Electronic ISSN: 1461-7439
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 494-514
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480621989264
• Keywords: Prison oversight; prison suicide; voluntary sector; NGOs; OPCAT; poststructuralism
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5250901
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362480621989264