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Winner of the British Society of Criminology Annual Book Prize 2024.
The soundscape of prison life is that of constant clangs, bangs and jangles. What is the significance of this cacophonous din to those who live and work with it? This book tells the story of a year spent with a UK prison community, bringing its social world vividly to life for the first time through aural ethnography.
Kate Herrity’s sensory criminology challenges current thinking on how power is experienced by the imprisoned and the lasting effects of incarceration for all who spend time in these environments.
‘From the personal feelings and thoughts of the author to the relationships made with staff and prisoners, to the important discussions of order and power, this book quite simply does it all.
'Sound, Order and Survival' is a compelling, powerful, and distinct body of work that carries importance within and beyond the field of prison literature.
This is an important book. It asks novel questions and breaks new ground on how we think about prisons.
Herrity’s written a profound book that’s unlike anything I’ve read in the field.’ Symposium review, The British Journal of Criminology
'This book will be a key source as we move forward in seeking to fully understand sound as an aspect of carceral experiences and environments.' Crime, Media, Culture
'The book has laid a foundation for future work on penal settings, as well as transitions from community to prison and from prison to community.' The British Journal of Sociology
'This is a poignant, at times poetic, book about prison sound but it is also much more. A book that will be of use to criminologists interested in prisons and the pervasive nature of penal power, prison societies and carceral geography.' Punishment & Society
'Herrity not only maps new terrain but also begins to develop the language needed to study it. Her book offers a novel framework for analyzing incarceration and a methodological invitation to attend more closely to the sensory dimensions of institutional life, and to listen where sociology has too often remained silent.' Symbolic Interaction
'Kate Herrity's research on the sounds of prison life is one of the most vivid – or rather, resonant – new contributions to prison studies in many a long year. It refreshes our feel for what is involved in inhabiting that world as very few other studies have done. Our methods and our concepts for apprehending that reality can never be quite the same again.' Richard Sparks, University of Edinburgh
1. Just Landed
2. What Are You Hearing, Right Now?
3. Warp and Weft
4. “He’s Never Even Had a Magnum!”
5. Weft and Warp
6. A Night Inside
7. Talk to Me
8. Kackerlackas
9. A Kettle, a Penguin and a Word Arrow
10. Emotional Contagion
11. Arrhythmia
12. Polyrhythmia
13. Jingle Jangle
14. Disentangling Power and Order
15. Learning the “Everyday Tune”
16. Listening To Power
17. Singing Frogs, Looping the Slam
18. The Auld Triangle
19. The Hustle and Bustle
20. Phasing
21. Polyrhythmia Revisited
22. Bells, Whistles, Ships and Prisons
23. Shipping Out
24. References