Citation

Wright S, Crewe B, Hulley S. Theor. Criminol. 2017; 21(2): 225-246.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1362480616643581

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The central purpose of the article is to explore the psychic components of the early pains of imprisonment described by male and female prisoners serving very long mandatory life sentences for murder. While there is a strong tradition of documenting prisoners' adaptations to life inside', little work in prisons sociology explores how life-sentenced prisoners, specifically those convicted of murder, reactively respond and adjust to the early years of these sentences. Having outlined prisoners' descriptions of entry shock, temporal vertigo and intrusive recollections, we draw upon a Freudian terminology of defense mechanisms of the ego' to argue that suppression, denial and sublimation represent key ways of defending against' (rather than adapting to') these experiences. We suggest that the particular offense-time nexus of our sample the specific offense of murder combined with a very long sentence helps to explain these defensive patterns.

Language: en