Anand A Yang, Empire of Convicts – Indian Penal Labour in Colonial Southeast Asia

Abstract

tions largely comprise of these marginalised groups and where the research site was located), and the documented ‘banlieue-to-prison pipeline’ (p.17). The importance of this is present throughout the book and provides sobering context to Kazemian’s assessment of an individual’s chances of maintaining desistance efforts. Within the French context, this highlights the additional barriers to desistance experienced by people of North African descent. Such concerns about the variability in desistance experiences feature prominently in the Conclusion, where Kazemian highlights the need to ‘test’ our understanding of desistance narratives across different socio-cultural groups and contexts. This final chapter also acts as a rallying call for significant and systemic changes in the ways in which we treat people in prison, but within the context of a need to deal with the wider social structures that continue to oppress, marginalise and criminalise ‘others’.