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    Only one way to swim? The offence and the life course in accounts of adaptation to life imprisonment

    Jarman, Ben (2020) Only one way to swim? The offence and the life course in accounts of adaptation to life imprisonment. The British Journal of Criminology 60 (6), pp. 1460-1479. ISSN 0007-0955.

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    Abstract

    Recent studies of long-term imprisonment describe a largely invariant pattern of prisoner adaptation. Using data from a qualitative study of men serving life sentences in England, I argue that adaptation may in fact vary more than these studies imply both because of the prisoner's age when sentenced and because of the circumstances of particular offences. Participants' engagement with the prison's rehabilitative `offer' depended on how the sentence affected their life course and what they understood to be the moral ramifications of the offence. These findings refine understanding of adaptation and suggest that a renewed focus on moral reflexivity may bear fruit in future prison research.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): indefinite imprisonment, life imprisonment, long-term imprisonment, moral reflection, murder, rehabilitation
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Law School
    Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Research Centres and Institutes: Crime & Justice Policy Research, Institute for
    Depositing User: Ben Jarman
    Date Deposited: 07 Oct 2022 15:16
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 18:18
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/49335

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