Open Universities, Close Prisons: Critical Arguments for the Future

Abstract

Drawing on critical social theory and arguments that prison is a profoundly misunderstood institution only loosely related to trends in crime, Earle and Mehigan write against the grain of celebrating the successes of prison education. Anchored in the radical scholarship of OU social science, they seek to extend criticism of imprisonment beyond its reform and toward abolition. Questions of race, racism and colonial patterns of inclusion and exclusion drive an argument that demands a more qualified enthusiasm for prison education.