ABSTRACT
Imprisonment provokes profound questions of justice to the extent that the use of penal institutions provides a stark barometer of the condition of democracy in any society. Prisons occupy a central place in popular sentiment and political rhetoric on punishment, even though in no jurisdiction are the majority of convicted offenders actually sent to prison. This chapter examines imprisonment as a social practice that generates deep-seated disputes, whilst introducing the key themes that define contemporary prisons in western societies – not least since there is considerable consensus that the penal system in England and Wales has been in a state of ever-deepening crisis since the 1960s. The Act promoted a new vision of imprisonment that would unite the punitive and reformative through hard labour and religious instruction in a system where prisoners were classified into groups, while profits from their labour paid prison staff.
