IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/crimin/v63y2023i1p97-114..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do prisons cause radicalization? Order, leadership, political charge and violence in two maximum security prisons

Author

Listed:
  • Ryan Williams
  • Alison Liebling

Abstract

Sociological studies of prisons require expanded methodologies and interdisciplinary concepts to address challenges posed by changing prisoner demographics and transformed geopolitics. We aim to revitalize sociological inquiry on prisons and prisoner leadership by focussing on the question of whether prisons cause radicalization. Our findings support those of the most persuasive original studies: distinct prison climates generate different hierarchies, only some of which are violent. Through extensive fieldwork we explore the differences between a prison with high levels of ‘political charge’, or anger, and another with less, drawing on extremist events that unfolded over time. We contrast the dangerous dynamics of prison 1 with the more fluid, prosocial religious explorations facilitated by prison 2, considering the implications for prison radicalization studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Ryan Williams & Alison Liebling, 2023. "Do prisons cause radicalization? Order, leadership, political charge and violence in two maximum security prisons," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 63(1), pages 97-114.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:crimin:v:63:y:2023:i:1:p:97-114.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/bjc/azab122
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:crimin:v:63:y:2023:i:1:p:97-114.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/bjc .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.