Young Men, Masculinities and Imprisonment

“Given the connection between youth, maleness and crime, the literature on the imprisonment of young men is surprisingly sparse. Murray’s book opens up this world with a sensitive and insightful analysis that advances our understanding significantly, charting the layered masculine dynamics of Hydebank Wood.”
---Ben Crewe, Professor of Penology and Criminal Justice and Deputy Director of the Prisons Research Centre, University of Cambridge, UK

Given the over-involvement of young men in crime and young men’s disproportionally high rates of reoffending, it is surprising that more research has not explored young men’s experiences of prison. This book is based on the findings of a nine-month ethnographic case study of Hydebank Wood College, a young men’s prison in Northern Ireland. It seeks to explore the complexity of gender construction and masculine performance during young adulthood, while also exposing and dissecting the turbulent social life of a young men’s prison.

In examining these themes, the book takes account of the unique social, economic, and political factors that impact young men in communities in Northern Ireland, paying particular attention to their feelings of powerlessness, marginalisation, and vulnerability, and the construction of identity in cultures defined by territorialism, violence, masculine stoicism, and an anti-authority code of ‘honour’. The book follows the formation of masculinities through the prison gate and considers how the penal environment contributes to the continual shaping young men’s identities. The book also adopts Gambetta’s concept of ‘signalling’ to examine how young men use different practices, such as language and embodiment, to communicate masculinity to their wider social audience. At the same time, it also considers the reluctance of young men to communicate about their sources of vulnerability.

Conor Murray is Lecturer in Criminology within the School of Applied Socialand Policy Sciences at Ulster University, Northern Ireland. He is the Director of Postgraduate Research within the School, and Ulster University’s Institutional Director for the ESRC Northern Ireland and North-East England Doctoral Training Partnership.