The Stains of Imprisonment: Moral Communication and Men Convicted of Sex Offenses

Alice Ievins

Open Access Published by University of California Press 2023

The Stains of Imprisonment

Moral Communication and Men Convicted of Sex Offenses

Alice Ievins

Volume 10 in the series Gender and Justice

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520383722

Overview
Contents

About this book

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.

Recent decades have seen a widespread effort to imprison more people for sexual violence. The Stains of Imprisonment offers an ethnographic account of one of the worlds that this push has created: an English prison for men convicted of sex offenses. This book examines the ways in which prisons are morally communicative institutions, instilling in prisoners particular ideas about the offenses they have committed—ideas that carry implications for prisoners' moral character. Investigating the moral messages contained in the prosaic yet power-imbued processes that make up daily life in custody, Ievins finds that the prison she studied communicated a pervasive sense of disgust and shame, marking the men it held as permanently stained. Rather than promoting accountability, this message discouraged prisoners from engaging in serious moral reflection on the harms they had caused. Analyzing these effects, Ievins explores the role that imprisonment plays as a response to sexual harm, and the extent to which it takes us closer to and further from justice.

Author / Editor information

Ievins Alice :

Alice Ievins is a Lecturer at the University of Liverpool.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
1. Punishing Rape: Feminisms and the Carceral Conversation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Communicating Badly: Prisons as Morally Communicative Institutions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
3. Distorting Institutions: Structuring the Moral Dialogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
4. Managing Guilt: Living as a “Sex Offender” in Prison Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
5. Maintaining Innocence: Contesting Guilt and Challenging Imprisonment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
6. Moralizing Boundaries: Staff-Prisoner Relationships and the Communication of Difference Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
7. Denying Community: Social Relationships and the Dangers of Acknowledgment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
8. Judging Prisons: The Limitations and Excesses of Denunciatory Punishment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 214

eBook

Published: January 24, 2023
ISBN: 9780520383722