2025/10/08 by Lynn Saunders, Melanie Jordan, Edward J. Wright · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis #Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending #Crime Patterns and Interventions
paper · doi:10.1177/17488958251362422
openalex publication_date 2025/10/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
We reconceptualise the experience of people with sexual convictions leaving prison, as being in , but not of , the community. Release from prison can be characterised as falling into a necropolitical abyss, which entails extreme social exclusion. Via our interview data we extend current understanding on this transition, as we newly theorise the severity of the cliff-face drop, the post-prison precarity and the deathworld experience. Escape from the deathworld is attempted through performance, via what we term a life mask. Embracing the work of Agamben, Butler, Mbembe and Goffman we explore this substitute stigmatised identity performance. We evaluate the ontological (in)security for persons with sexual convictions. Novelty also lies in the form of positivity ascribed to imprisonment as, although prison is recognised as a terrible place, it nonetheless does facilitate security and a social life.