ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book considers prison officers sympathetically, yet critically, in an effort to shed light on the crucial practice of 'doing' coercion. It stands on the shoulders of the many researchers who have spent their entire lives trying to unpack, from very different positions and standpoints, what prison actually is and how it operates in different times, spaces and geographies. The book provides enough information and a sufficiently comprehensive account to offer what Liebling calls 'authentic description' while leaving space for readers' own interpretations. It focuses on prison officers' dynamic and interactive practice of using force aiming at unpacking the complex, unstable and negotiated 'nature' of it, rather than providing moral judgements.
