ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the logical destination of the production and impact of penal culture, and that is a consideration of the ways that the prison has become part of the public experience. It discusses the creation and blossoming of penal culture in the wider community. The chapter investigates how the prison colonises new spaces and places, and discusses how the 'war on drugs' has impacted on prison culture since the 1980s. The opening in 2008 of Community Offender Support Services (COSPs) in New South Wales (NSW) provides a clear example of a further extension of the prison into the community post-release, and the normalisation of a prison-style way of life. Finally, it tracks the extension of the prison into the community through the 'prison/industrial complex' and the hybrid community-correctional space and discusses these extensions as forms of transcarceralism. It also indicates how messages about incarceration both reflect and create contemporary penal culture.
