ABSTRACT
This chapter is an attempt to address this gap in the literature by exploring existing research through a social justice lens. We are minded to do so in light of Halsey's claim that Incarceration is the medium for the exacerbation of deprivation rather than the means of deprivation per se, which caused us to wonder whether prisons could ever be agents of social justice. It has three different understandings of social justice: minimalist, mutual and egalitarian. We present research evidence on the nature and effects of imprisonment. This led to suggestions that higher levels of welfare support, or less punitive penal policies, might reduce the harmful effects of imprisonment on the children of prisoners. In the final part of the chapter we employ a social justice imagination to consider what prison might look like if it were redesigned under a penal policy that aimed to maximize civic inclusion rather than to facilitate social exclusion.
