The Prison Boundary

"This book, drawing on multidisciplinary theoretical literature and exciting, historically sensitive case studies, opens a new page in the cultural-political geographic studies of prisons and of their changing meanings in societies. The author problematises the relational and nuanced spaces of imprisonment and borders from a variety of viewpoints that are related to diverging symbolic and material registers. The result is a richly illustrated book that shows how the issue of inside and outside and the related dividing lines are far more complex than we tend to think. This original text will appeal to readers in the developing field of carceral geography and in other social and cultural science fields." (Professor Anssi Paasi, University of Oulu) "The Prison Boundary is an engaging, challenging and thought-provoking book which interrogates the notion of a binary distinction between what is "inside" and what is "outside" the prison. Jennifer Turner engages thoughtfully with geographical and criminological literatures first to conceptualise the boundary itself, and then to explore ways in which it is transgressed. This book undoubtedly advances scholarship in the vibrant field of carceral geography." (Dominique Moran, University of Birmingham)

This book explores the idea of the prison boundary, identifying where it is located, which processes and performances help construct and animate it, and who takes part in them. The book reveals how prisoners actively engage with life outside of prison and how members of the public may cross the boundary to the inside.This book explores the idea of the prison boundary, identifying where it is located, which processes and performances help construct and animate it, and who takes part in them. Although the relationship between prison and non-prison has garnered academic interest from various disciplines in the last decade, the cultural performance of the boundary has been largely ignored. This book adds to the field by exploring the complexity of the material and symbolic connections that exist between society and carceral space. 
Drawing on a range of cultural examples including governmental legislation, penal tourism, prisoner work programmes and art by offenders, Jennifer Turner attends to the everyday, practised manifestations and negotiations of the prison boundary. The book reveals how prisoners actively engage with life outside of prison and how members of the public may cross the boundary to the inside. In doing so, it shows the prison boundary to be a complex patchwork of processes, people and parts. The book will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of criminology, carceral geography and cultural studies.