Advancing Corrections Journal - Edition #20 - Scholarly Reflections on Core Considerations for Correctional Practice | Article 4 (ACJ20-A004)

 

In 2019, feeling somewhat burned out and demoralised by what I was seeing in prisons, I applied for a 3-year Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship and took a break. I wanted write a book synthesising my ‘life’s work’ in prisons, trying to find the narrative: what had I learned about prisons in all this time spent researching them (30 years)? Was there a way of articulating what went on in the best prisons, in the equilibrium, the ordinary human place where moments of expansion or self-redefinition occurred? Would a full description of this kind of work help to grow more of it? Finally, 5 years later, the book is complete. I have called it Aristotle’s Prison: A Search for Humanity in Tragic Places. It will be published by Oxford University Press in 2026. Writing it took me in some unexpected directions. In this article I introduce some of its key themes and try to reflect on some of its practical implications.

 

Keywords: Humanity; Moral climates; Prison staff; Human survival; Personal growth

 

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