Twenty years ago, David Downes in his classic study, Contrasts in Tolerance, interviewed Dutch prisoners held in England and English prisoners held in the Netherlands and concluded that the Dutch provided a more humane penal system. Since that time, there have been significant changes in penal policies in both England and the Netherlands, which call into question both his conclusions and many of the current comparative analyses of penal trends. We examine the conditions of confinement for both Dutch prisoners held in English prisons and English prisoners held in the Netherlands to determine whether and how these carceral environments have changed over time. We draw on recent organizational research on ‘inhabited institutions’ to help advance our understanding of both transformations and continuities in penal trends across different political contexts.
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