Bridging criminological and philosophical discourses, this article builds upon Berlin's ‘concepts of liberty’ to theorise the meaning of parole release. Through qualitatively analysing 130 Israeli lifers’ Parole Board hearings, we found that lifers focused more heavily on their loss of – and potential to regain – positive liberty than on negative liberty. Here, we detail how lifers progressed beyond reflecting upon their past and their current state of imprisonment (‘release from’), towards thinking about their present (‘realising release’) and their future (‘release to’). The findings, therefore, demonstrate the normative importance of the parole process in assisting lifers’ constructions of identity, agency, and hope.
AjzenstadtMKhoury-KassabriM (2013) The cultural context of juvenile justice policy in Israel. Journal of Social Policy42(1): 111–128.
2.
ArrigoBABarrettL (2008) Philosophical criminology and complex systems science: Towards a critical theory of justice. Critical Criminology16(3): 165–184.
3.
ArrigoBAWilliamsCR (2010) Philosophy, Crime, and Criminology. Chicago: UIP.
4.
AviramH (2020) The Manson Family Cases and the Illusion of Parole. Oakland, CA: UCP.
5.
BerlinI (1969/2002) Liberty. Oxford: OUP.
6.
BeyensKBreulsLGilbertE (2022) The ‘reintegration paradox’: working towards the future while standing still. In: CarrNRobinsonG (eds) Time and Punishment. Cham: Springer, 143–169.
7.
BottomsAEJacobsJ (2023) Criminology as a Moral Science. London: Bloomsbury.
8.
BraithwaiteJPettitP (1990) A Republican Theory of Criminal Justice. Oxford: OUP.
CohenSTaylorL (1972) The Experience of Long-Term Imprisonment. New York: Pantheon.
12.
CondryRMinsonS (2021) Conceptualizing the effects of imprisonment on families: collateral consequences, secondary punishment, or symbiotic harms?Theoretical Criminology25(4): 540–558.
13.
CreweB (2011) Depth, weight, tightness: revisiting the pains of imprisonment. Punishment & Society13(5): 509–529.
14.
CreweB (2024) ‘Sedative coping’, contextual maturity and institutionalization among prisoners serving life sentences in England and Wales. The British Journal of CriminologyXX: 1–18.
15.
CreweBHulleySWrightS (2020) Life Imprisonment from Young Adulthood: Adaptation, Identity and Time. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
16.
DaganN (2022) Overcoming penal boundaries: exploring the evolution of retributive time through parole decision-making. The British Journal of Criminology62(1): 37–54.
17.
FaganA (2017) Human Rights and Cultural Diversity: Core Issues and Cases. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
18.
GarlandD (2011) The problem of the body in modern state punishment. Social Research78(3): 767–798.
19.
GoffmanE (1963) Stigma. New York: Simon & Schuster.
20.
GoffmanE (1972) Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. London: Penguin.
21.
HabermasJ (2003) The Future of Human nature. Oxford: Polity Press.
22.
HanSY (2012) The purloined prisoner. Theoretical Criminology16(2): 157–174.
23.
HawkinsK (1983) Assessing evil-decision behaviour and parole board justice. British Journal of Criminology23(2): 101–127.
24.
HerbertS (2024) Degradation or redemption? A parole board polices a moral boundary. Law & Social Inquiry49(1): 308–328.
25.
HeritageJ (1984) Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity.
26.
HulleyS (forthcoming) The moral weight of murder.
27.
IPS (2021) Annual Report for 2020. Ramla: IPS.
28.
JewkesY (2005) Loss, liminality and the life sentence: managing identity through a disrupted lifecourse. In: LieblingAMarunaS (eds) The Effects of Imprisonment. Willan: Cullompton, 366–388.
29.
KerleyKR(ed.) (2018) Finding Freedom in Confinement: The Role of Religion in Prison Life. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
30.
Knesset (2019) Report: Parole boards (Hebrew).
31.
KornsteinDJ (1997) The Byronic hero meets the law and literature movement. Emory Law Journal46(4): 1617–1628.
32.
Lavin-LoucksDLevanKM (2018) Identity, discourse, and rehabilitation in parole hearings in the United States. Journal of Prison Education & Reentry5(1): 18–40.
33.
LieblingA (2011) Moral performance, inhuman and degrading treatment and prison pain. Punishment & Society13(5): 530–550.
34.
LieblingA (2021) What is philosophy in prison? George Eliot and the search for moral insight. Journal of Prison Education & Reentry7(2): 104–114.
35.
LieblingAArnoldHStraubC (2011) An Exploration of Staff-Prisoner Relationships at HMP Whitemoor: 12 Years On. London: MOJ.
36.
LieblingAJohnsenBSchmidtB, et al. (2021) Where two ‘exceptional’ prison cultures meet: negotiating order in a transnational prison. British Journal of Criminology61(1): 41–60.
37.
MarunaS (2001) Making Good. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
38.
MarunaS (2011) Reentry as a rite of passage. Punishment & Society13(1): 3–28.
39.
MarunaS (2025) Narrating Justice and Hope: How Good Stories Counter Crime and Harm. New York, NY: NYU Press.
40.
MarunaSLiemM (2021) Where is this story going? A critical analysis of the emerging field of narrative criminology. Annual Review of Criminology4: 125–146.
41.
MarunaSRoyK (2007) Amputation or reconstruction? Notes on the concept of ‘knifing off’ and desistance from crime. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice23(1): 104–124.
42.
MastersJJ (2020) Finding Freedom: How Death Row Broke and Opened My Heart. Junction City, CA: Padma.
43.
McNeillFBurnsNHallidayS (2009) Risk, responsibility and reconfiguration: penal adaptation and misadaptation. Punishment & Society11(2): 419–442.
44.
McNeillF, et al. (2022) Time after time: imprisonment, re-entry and enduring temporariness. In: CarrNRobinsonG (eds) Time and Punishment: New Contexts and Perspectives. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 171–201.
Ministry of Justice (2018) Review of the Law, Policy and Procedure Relating to Parole Board Decisions. London: HM Stationary Office.
47.
NellisA (2021) No End in Sight: America’s Enduring Reliance on Life Imprisonment. Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project.
48.
PadfieldN (2013) Beyond the Tariff. Cullompton, UK: Willan Publishing.
49.
Parole Law (2001) S.H. 1795 (Hebrew).
50.
PattakosADundonECoveryS (2017) Prisoners of Our Thoughts. Oakland: Berrett-Koehler.
51.
PettitP (1997) Republicanism. A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
52.
PogrebinMRStreteskyPBWalkerA, et al. (2015) Rejection, humiliation, and parole: A study of parolees' perspectives. Symbolic Interaction38(3): 413–430.
53.
RazJ (1980) The Concept of a Legal System. Oxford: Clarendon.
54.
RazJ (1986) The Morality of Freedom. Clarendon Press.
55.
ReevesC (2019) What punishment expresses. Social & Legal Studies28(1): 31–57.
56.
RennieACreweB (2023) ‘Tightness’, autonomy and release: the anticipated pains of release and life licencing. British Journal of Criminology63(1): 184–200.
57.
RosenfeldMNoahR (2021) An empirical study of parole in Israel. Hebrew University Journal of Legislation15: 9–66 (in Hebrew).
58.
SanerS (2025) Embedded agency: A critique of negative liberty and free markets. Philosophy & Social Criticism 51(1): 98–131.
59.
SapsfordR (1983) Life Sentence Prisoners: Reaction, Response and Change. Keynes: Open University.
60.
SextonL (2015) Penal subjectivities: Developing a theoretical framework for penal consciousness. Punishment & Society17(1): 114–136.
61.
ShammasV (2019) California lifers, performative dialogue, and the ideology of insight. Political & Legal Anthropology Review42(2): 142–160.
62.
SykesG (1958) The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison. Princeton: PUP.
63.
TaylorC (1985) Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Cambridge: CUP.
64.
TurnerV (1982) The Ritual Process. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
65.
UgelvikT (2014) Power and Resistance in Prison: Doing Time, doing Freedom. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
66.
Van GinnekenEFHayesD (2017) ‘Just’ punishment? Offenders’ views on the meaning and severity of punishment. Criminology & Criminal Justice17(1): 62–78.
67.
van Zyl SmitDAppletonC (2019) Life Imprisonment: A Global Human Rights Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
68.
von HirschA (2017) Deserved Criminal Sentences. Oxford: Hart.
69.
WarrJ (2020) ‘Always gotta be two mans’: lifers, risk, rehabilitation, and narrative labour. Punishment & Society22(1): 28–47.
70.
WeaverBPiacentiniLMoodieK, et al. (2021) Exploring and explaining non-compliance with community supervision. British Journal of Criminology61: 434–455.
71.
WilliamsR (2018) Finding freedom and rethinking power: Islamic piety in English high security prisons. British Journal of Criminology58: 730–748.
72.
WilsonMJohnstonHWalkerL (2022) ‘It was like an animal in pain’: institutional thoughtlessness and experiences of bereavement in prison. Criminology & Criminal Justice22(1): 150–170.
73.
WinlowSHallSBriggsD, et al. (2015) Riots and Political Protest. Abingdon: Routledge.
74.
YoungKChimowitzH (2022) How parole boards judge remorse: relational legal consciousness and the reproduction of carceral logic. Law & Society Review56(2): 237–260.
