Haunted by the Presence of Death: Prisons, Abolitionism and the Right to Life

Scott, David (2018). Haunted by the Presence of Death: Prisons, Abolitionism and the Right to Life. In: Stanley, Elizabeth ed. Human Rights and Incarceration: Critical Explorations. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 129–151.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95399-1_6

Abstract

This chapter explores how prisons in England and Wales are haunted by the presence of death. It details how prisoners experience civil death (death in law), social death (death as a worthy human being) and corporeal death (literal death of the body). The chapter discusses two different but associated abolitionist strategies to contest the prison as a place of death: (i) naming the people who have died and recognising their continued humanity, as a way to promote greater penal accountability; and, (ii) direct action as a way of ‘making something happen’. Overall, the chapter points to the need for a dedicated democratic public space (an agora) committed to rational, informed debate that recognises the inherent deadly outcomes of imprisonment.