Aristotle's Prison A Search for Humanity in Tragic Places

Aristotle's Prison offers a compelling and original exploration of the moral landscape within high-security prisons, drawing on years of rigorous empirical research. In this deeply insightful work, the author examines the complex relationships between prison staff and prisoners, revealing how these interactions are shaped by profound moral forces that can either nurture human dignity or inflict lasting psychological harm.

Focusing mainly on long-term incarceration settings, the book delves into the ethical dimensions of prison life, where questions of fairness, humanity, and survival are starkly illuminated. Through systematic analysis, it uncovers how varying moral climates influence critical outcomes such as violence, personal growth, institutional order, and the capacity to endure time spent in prison.

Alison Liebling seamlessly integrates penological research with moral philosophy to illuminate how the presence -or absence- of humane treatment profoundly shapes prisoners' vitality, growth and capacity for survival. When individuals are affirmed or treated with deep regard by others, their sense of personhood is strengthened, fostering resilience, agency and growth. Conversely, environments marked by indifference, unfairness, and a lack of support, safety, or opportunity can extinguish the life force, leading to devitalization and long-term harm.

This groundbreaking work challenges readers to reconsider what it means to be human, and to treat others with humanity, especially in places designed to punish. It is a vital contribution to our understanding of prisons as morally intense and tragically hidden institutions, offering fresh insight into the human consequences of incarceration.

Alison Liebling, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge

Alison Liebling is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Cambridge and the Director of the Institute of Criminology's Prisons Research Centre. She has carried out research on life in prison for over 30 years. Her books include Prisons and their Moral Performance: A Study of Values, Quality and Prison Life (2004), The Effects of Imprisonment (2005, with Shadd Maruna), and The Prison Officer (2nd edition 2010, with David Price and Guy Shefer). She is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Criminology (2017 and 2022 editions). She was made a member of the British Academy in 2018.

PART I. BACKGROUND AND FRAMEWORKChapter 1. Prisons, human vibrations, and the case for moral social scholarshipChapter 2. Person-centred social science, ethnography-led measurement, and intellectual craftsmanshipPART II. THE CHEMISTRY OF SURVIVAL AND DESTRUCTIONChapter 3. Suicide and the survivable prisonChapter 4. Creating anger in an I-It prisonChapter 5. Becoming a Thou in Frankland prisonChapter 6. Becoming a person and being alive: Discovering the I in I-Thou relationsChapter 7. Aristotle's Prison: Excess, deficit, and the masterpiece of penal orderPART III. PRISONS, PUNISHMENT, AND MORAL SOCIAL SCHOLARSHIPChapter 8. What's at stake? Prisons, punishment, and excessive sufferingEpilogue