How prisons around the world shape the social lives of their inhabitants
Prison Life offers a fresh appreciation of how people in prison organize their lives, drawing on case studies from Africa, Europe and the US. The book describes how order is maintained, how power is exercised, how days are spent, and how meaning is found in a variety of environments that all have the same function - incarceration - but discharge it very differently. It is based on an unusually diverse range of sources including photographs, drawings, court cases, official reports, memoirs, and site visits.
Ian O-Donnell contrasts the soul-destroying isolation of the federal supermax in Florence, Colorado with the crowded conviviality of an Ethiopian prison where men and women cook their own meals, seek opportunities to generate an income, elect a leadership team, and live according to a code of conduct that they devised and enforce. He explores life on wings controlled by the Irish Repub
