ABSTRACT
The questions examined in this book touch upon several different areas of criminology, such as prison research, youth care provision, recidivism studies and life course research. The theoretical framework employed in order to understand and interpret the significance of custodial openness for everyday institutional life and for reoffending, proceeds from a combination of Goffman’s (1991) work on total institutions and Foucault’s (1991) work on discipline. I will therefore begin by discussing the similarities between the two perspectives, and the ways in which they complement one another, and will then move on to issues of power and resistance at youth institutions and in prison. The discussion concludes by looking at the significance of time and place for the experience of incarceration and at how this also has embodied effects that remain with the inmate even once the period of incarceration is over.
