Book Review: Male, Failed, Jailed: Masculinities and “Revolving-Door” Imprisonment in the UK

In this monograph, Maguire focuses on the role masculinity plays in the lives of 30 men he interviewed in prison in Hull. He highlights how modes of protest masculinity, learned on the streets, in schools and in residential care limit engagement at (failing) schools. This reduces the possibilities of the men gaining employment in an economy that has swerved to the service sector, with manufacturing jobs disappearing from Hull faster even than elsewhere. Charting these men’s journeys, Maguire skilfully weaves together the empirical data with his analysis and the literature to show the way masculinities are formed and entrenched, while also themselves entrenching the men in ever more marginalized positions, culminating for some in the prison’s Vulnerable Prisoner Unit (VPU).