Male, failed, jailed : masculinities and "revolving door" imprisonment in the UK

"In his classic study Learning to Labour, Paul Willis showed us how the pressures of masculinity duped working class English boys into self-entrapment in lives of manual labour. Forty years later in post-industrial north of England, Maguire finds that the same demands of masculinity are now preparing working class males not for the factory floor, but for prison. Maguire's ground-breaking new study of the reproduction of a criminal caste has the potential to be as transformative as Willis's writing was 45 years ago." --Shadd Maruna, Professor of Criminology, Queen's University Belfast, UK The profile of prisoners across many Western countries is strikingly similar - 95% male, predominantly undereducated and underemployed, from the most deprived neighbourhoods. This book reflects on how similarly positioned men configure masculinities against global economic shifts that have seen the decimation of traditional, manual-heavy industry and with it the disruption of long-established relations of labour. Drawing on life history interviews and classical ethnography, the book charts a group of men's experiences pre, during and post prison. Tracking the development of masculinities from childhood to adulthood, across impoverished streets, 'failing' schools and inadequate state 'care', the book questions whether this proved better preparation for serving prison time than working in their local, service-dominated, labour markets. It integrates theories of crime, geography, economics and masculinity to take into account structural and global economic shifts as well as individual long-term perspectives in order to provide a broad examination on pathways to prison and post prison. David Maguire is Director for the Prison Reform Trust's Building Futures Programme, a five-year programme for those that have served 10 or more years in prison. As a researcher at Oxford University and University College London, UK, he has extensive experience leading on prison-based projects, collecting data on the vulnerabilities facing those in prison and widely disseminating these findings to impact change Acknowledgments 6 Praise for Male, Failed, Jailed 7 Contents 8 1 Introduction: Failing Masculinities 12 1.1 Aims and Objectives 18 1.2 Structure of the Book 19 References 21 2 Theorising Marginalised Masculinities 24 2.1 Theorising Masculinities 24 2.2 Critical Men’s Studies 27 2.3 Hegemonic Masculinity 28 2.4 Protest Masculinity 29 2.5 Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity 31 2.5.1 Inclusive (Softer) Masculinities 32 2.5.2 Reconfiguring Hegemonic Masculinity 33 2.6 Masculine Crisis 34 2.7 Conclusion 36 References 36 3 Economic Change: Post-industrial Masculinities 44 3.1 National Level 45 3.2 Regional 47 3.3 Schooling Working-Class Masculinities 51 3.3.1 Failing Boys 51 3.3.2 Schooling Masculinity 52 3.3.3 “Poverty of Expectation” 55 3.3.4 Underperforming Schools 55 3.4 Youth Transitions 56 3.4.1 Challenging Transitions 58 3.4.2 “Alternative Careers” 59 3.5 Masculinities and Crime 62 3.5.1 Masculine Turn 63 3.5.2 Masculinity and Violent Crime 65 3.6 Prison Masculinities 66 3.6.1 Early Sociology of Prisons 67 3.6.2 “Prisoners as Men” 69 3.7 Conclusion 72 References 73 4 Background and Methods: Epistemological Privilege? 82 4.1 Introduction 82 4.2 Place of Research: “I Grew Up on an Estate in Hull... I Just Took the Wrong Road” 83 4.3 Field: Local Prison 85 4.4 Epistemological Privilege? “God Nutters or Fucking Grasses” 86 4.4.1 Getting In: Access 88 4.4.2 Building Rapport 90 4.4.3 Equalised Power Relations 91 4.4.4 Covert Insider 92 4.5 Methods 93 4.5.1 Participants 93 4.5.2 Life History Interviews and Non-participant Observation 94 4.5.3 Data Analysis 95 4.6 Conclusion 95 References 95 5 Local Lads: Pathways to Prison 98 5.1 Introduction 98 5.2 Deprived Neighbourhoods 99 5.3 “Care of Local Authority” 102 5.4 Schooling 105 5.4.1 Masculinities: Barriers to Learning 106 5.4.2 Schooling Hard Masculinities 109 5.4.3 Alternative Provision 111 5.4.4 School for “Bad Lads” 112 5.5 Criminal Trajectories 113 5.5.1 “Buzz” Crime 113 5.5.2 Material Crime 117 5.5.3 Violent Crime 119 5.6 Conclusion 121 References 122 6 (Non)Working Lives 124 6.1 Introduction 124 6.2 School-to-Work Transitions 125 6.3 Protest Masculinities: Workplace Exclusion 127 6.4 “Grafting” and Work 131 6.4.1 Work-Willing 133 6.4.2 Ex-Con 136 6.5 Prison Learning 140 6.6 Conclusion 144 References 145 7 Boys to “Cons”: Adolescent-to-Adult Transitions in the Local Prison 147 7.1 Introduction 147 7.2 First Time “Inside” 148 7.2.1 Representations of Imprisonment 151 7.2.2 “Hitting the Wing”: “Home from Home” 153 7.2.3 “Easy Jail”? 157 7.2.4 Initiation Test 160 7.3 Time Served: Coming-of-Age Transitions 164 7.3.1 Abrupt Transitions: Young Adult Offenders 165 7.3.2 Carceral Purgatory 167 7.3.3 “Con” Status 168 7.4 Conclusion 170 References 171 8 Vulnerable Masculinities: Absent Men and Imagined Futures 175 8.1 Introduction 175 8.2 Vulnerable Prisoners 176 8.2.1 Situationally Stratified VPU Masculinities 177 8.2.2 VPU Adaptation Strategies 178 8.2.3 Protest as Adaptation 179 8.2.4 Acceptance as Adaptation 180 8.2.5 Pragmatic Adaptation 182 8.2.6 Liminal Prison Masculinity 184 8.3 Life Behind the Door: Absent Men 186 8.3.1 Locked Inside 189 8.3.2 Absent Fathers 192 8.4 Imagined Futures 195 8.4.1 Role Models 195 8.4.2 Domesticity 197 8.5 Conclusion 200 References 201 9 Conclusion: Marginalised from the Margins 203 9.1 Introduction 203 9.2 Impoverished Masculine Trajectories 204 9.2.1 Class, Gender and Protest Masculinity 204 9.2.2 Deprived Neighbourhoods, Failing Schools and Poor “Care” 205 9.2.3 Marginalised Workplace Transitions 206 9.2.4 Boys to “Cons” in Impoverished Prison Regimes 208 9.2.5 On the Margins: Outside Looking In 209 9.3 Final Thoughts 212 References 214 References 216 Index 245 Front Matter ....Pages i-xii Introduction: Failing Masculinities (David Maguire)....Pages 1-12 Theorising Marginalised Masculinities (David Maguire)....Pages 13-32 Economic Change: Post-industrial Masculinities (David Maguire)....Pages 33-70 Background and Methods: Epistemological Privilege? (David Maguire)....Pages 71-86 Local Lads: Pathways to Prison (David Maguire)....Pages 87-112 (Non)Working Lives (David Maguire)....Pages 113-135 Boys to “Cons”: Adolescent-to-Adult Transitions in the Local Prison (David Maguire)....Pages 137-164 Vulnerable Masculinities: Absent Men and Imagined Futures (David Maguire)....Pages 165-192 Conclusion: Marginalised from the Margins (David Maguire)....Pages 193-205 Back Matter ....Pages 207-243