ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by raising some persistent questions about what prisons are, have been, or could be like in terms of shifting social evaluations of appropriate conditions and services. It aims to rehearse some well-known issues about imprisonment rates, especially where these have shown a marked upward pressure, sometimes to spectacular levels, in recent times. The chapter sketches some features of political discourse that have favoured the more 'robust' handling of offenders. It draws out some of what is at stake in debates over the scale, character and purposes of imprisonment and suggests some reasons why the arguments over those issues have taken a peculiarly complex and intense form. It seems very important, in light of the number of people in prison, the extreme dependency of prisoners on prison authorities and the all-encompassing nature of the penalty, to focus on the politics of imprisonment in its institutional aspect closely and in detail.
