Ben Crewe

I joined the Institute in 2001, as a post-doctoral fellow, having trained as a sociologist as an undergraduate at Cambridge, a Masters student at London School of Economics, and a PhD student at the University of Essex. I am interested in almost all aspects of prison life, in particular the prisoner experience, prison social life and culture, penal power, staff-prisoner relationships, prison management and penal policy, prison quality, and the impact of political, economic and cultural factors on the nature of imprisonment. I welcome interest from PhD students who wish to conduct research in these areas. My current research projects include a five-year, €2 million research project titled 'Penal policy making and the prisoner experience: a comparative analysis', which has involved extensive fieldwork in England & Wales and Norway and an ESRC-funded study of prisoners serving very long sentences from an early age (with Susie Hulley and Serena Wright). Previous research projects include an ESRC-funded study of values, practices and outcomes in public and private sector corrections (with Alison Liebling) and a NOMS-funded study of the role of prison governors (with Alison Liebling). I am one of the founding editors of the journal Incarceration, and am an International Associate Board member of Punishment and Society and Theoretical Criminology. I am also one of the series editors of Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology (with Yvonne Jewkes and Thomas Ugelvik) and a Trustee of the Prison Reform Trust.