Chapter 5: The Emotivity of Prison Experience

Prisons are hyper-intense crucibles of emotion. Constrictive, limiting, and controlling they call forth strong reactions; they have also been shown to deaden, to numb, and to dull the senses. This chapter examines the emotional infrastructure of prison landscapes and the emotional responses the prison experience evokes. We illustrate the significance of fear as constitutive of order and subjection and explore the way the prisoner is rendered fear-filled and emotive through the organisation and regulation of everyday life. We consider under what conditions people in prison dare not act or speak; and address what generates sadness, sorrow, and worry. We also attend to the occasions when prisoners articulate happiness or, against all the odds, a sense of freedom.