On confinement: Resident and inmate perspectives of secure care and imprisonment

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the meaning(s) of incarceration as narrated by young men detained within the South Australian secure care and prison systems. Specifically, and as a means of supplementing emerging knowledge of the ways people work their way out of crime, the article examines how offenders conceptually work their way through incarceration. Drawing on data obtained from 79 initial and follow-up interviews with young men in juvenile and adult correctional institutions, the subjective experience of lock-up across six interrelated themes are outlined: incarceration as familiar/secure; incarceration as respite; incarceration as criminogenic; incarceration as senseless; incarceration and respect; as well as incarceration and visitation. My central argument is that understanding how the event of incarceration works its way into the vocabulary and day-to-day dispositions of custodial subjects is integral to understanding the types of orientations toward self and other likely to be carried into the community upon release. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the kind of subject which confinement unwittingly produces in its efforts to produce the law-abiding young citizen.