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

Ben Jarman

doi:10.17863/CAM.51646

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.

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The document archived here is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in the British Journal of Criminology following peer review. The version of record (full citation below) is available online via https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/60/6/1460/5828494.

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Citation

BibTeX citation:

@article{jarmanOnlyOneWay2020,
  author = {Jarman, Ben},
  publisher = {Oxford Academic},
  title = {Only One Way to Swim? {The} Offence and the Life Course in
    Accounts of Adaptation to Life Imprisonment},
  journal = {The British Journal of Criminology},
  volume = {60},
  number = {6},
  pages = {1460-1479},
  date = {2020-10-21},
  url = {https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/304564},
  doi = {10.17863/CAM.51646},
  langid = {en-GB},
  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.}
}

For attribution, please cite this work as:

Jarman, B. (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), 1460–1479.