Prisoners on Prison Films

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Jamie Bennett, Victoria Knight

   Pages 1-21

3. Bronson: Power and Resistance

   • Jamie Bennett, Victoria Knight

   Pages 23-38

4. Starred Up: Prison Cultures and Personal Change

   • Jamie Bennett, Victoria Knight

   Pages 39-56

5. We Are Monster: Race in Prison

   • Jamie Bennett, Victoria Knight

   Pages 57-77

6. Screwed: Prison Work and Prison Officer Cultures

   • Jamie Bennett, Victoria Knight

   Pages 79-96

7. Everyday: Families of Prisoners and the Collateral Harms of Imprisonment

   • Jamie Bennett, Victoria Knight

   Pages 97-115

8. Conclusion

   • Jamie Bennett, Victoria Knight

   Pages 117-131

9. Back Matter

   Pages 133-134

   PDF

This book explores how an audience of men serving sentences in an English prison responded to viewing five contemporary British prison films. It examines how media representations of prison vary in style and content, how film can influence public attitudes, and how this affects people in prison. The book explains the ways in which film acts as a power resource, presenting an ideological vision of criminal justice. The audience used these films to map the social terrain of prison, including issues of power and resistance; race and racism; corruption and the illicit economy; and staff-prisoner relationships, themes which are explored in the films screened. The authors argue that media consumption is one of the ways in which people in prison construct and maintain an ideal of the prisoner culture and what it is to be a ‘prisoner’. The book also reveals the ways in which audience members’ media choices and readings are part of the ongoing process of constructing their self-identity. This book illuminates the complex ways in which media consumption is an integral part of social power, cultural formation and identity construction. Recognising and engaging with audiencehood offers one potential route for supporting more progressive penal practice. This book speaks to those interested in prisons, crime, media and culture, and film studies.

• media consumption
• effects of media consumption
• crime, punishment and media
• punishment
• crime, media and culture
• crime and society
• narrative criminology
• criminology research methods
• masculinity
• prison staff
• film violence
• rehabilitation
• mental health
• effects of prison
• prison policy
• prison and society
• crime films
• violence and crime
• ethnicity, class, gender and crime

“This book is an exciting read, not only for its remarkable content but because of the opportunities for future research. … This study is clearly limited by time, number and type of participants, but these limitations do not prevent the study from breaking new ground in an innovative area, allowing imprisoned people to return and refute the voyeuristic cinematic gaze.” (Holly Dempsey, Crime Media Culture, April 12, 2021)

• Security, Order and Counter Terrorism, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Ser, London, UK

  Jamie Bennett

• Applied Social Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

  Victoria Knight

Jamie Bennett is a Senior Civil Servant in the Ministry of Justice, UK, a Research Associate at University of Oxford, and a former prison governor. His previous publications include The Working Lives of Prison Managers (2015) and The Penal System: An introduction Sixth edition (2019).


Victoria Knight is Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University, UK.