ABSTRACT
This chapter examines three developments key to understanding the new place of the prison in Australian society: the extension of the logic of containment to groups who are either newly criminalized or arguably should not subject to punishment at all; the impacts of these changes in the creation of new penal domains; and the wider emergence of the prison as a desirable community asset. It examines a second element of the revalorisation of prison, namely the capacity of prisons to inflict pain upon those we disregard or fear. The chapter provides case studies from New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria begin in the mid 1900s, highlighting specific penal forms and practices in the deep end or innermost part of the NSW and Victorian prison systems. The old linkages between prisons and pain and thus between prisons and a more general offence to civilised sensibilities appear radically diminished.
