Invisible men: Short prison sentences and the pains of invisibility and insignificance

Abstract

Introduced as part of the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms, the Offender Rehabilitation Act (ORA) 2014 promised to offer resettlement support to individuals serving short sentences – a cohort which has long been neglected in penal policy and research discourse. Featuring the perspectives of 16 men serving a short sentence in England, this empirical work argues that there is a dissonance between the rhetoric of the additional support promised and the reality these individuals experienced. The pains literature is used to demonstrate how a perceived lack of institutional care and attention led respondents to feel invisible and insignificant. This caused service users to internalise a sense of reliance for their own resettlement. However, the ability to achieve this is predicated on possessing the necessary capital. Paradoxically the more an individual cycles around the revolving door of repeat short prison sentences, the more this capital becomes eroded, leading to the particular pain of burnout. The article concludes by advocating for a presumption against the use of short sentences in England and Wales.