Body Searches and Imprisonment

Tom Daems is Professor of Criminology at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), KU Leuven, Belgium. At LINC, he coordinates the research line on 'Punishment and Control'. Daems has published widely on punishment and prisons, in particular from a European perspective. With Palgrave, he previously published Electronic Monitoring: Tagging Offenders in a Culture of Surveillance (2020) and Europe in Prisons: Assessing the Impact of European Institutions on National Prison Systems (2017, co-edited with Luc Robert).

Chapter 1. Body searches as contested control measures.- Chapter 2. The imposition of power through touch: A sensory criminology approach to understanding body searches.- Chapter 3. Searching, 'state of security' and the structuration of prison security.- Chapter 4. Strip searches: A risky practice that needs to be monitored.- Chapter 5. Strip searches through the lens of the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment in European human rights law.- Chapter 6. Body searches and vulnerable groups: Women and LGBTQI+ people in prison.- Chapter 7. Body searches in Belgian prisons: dignity, security and denial.- Chapter 8. Body searches in French prisons: Dignity and security on a roller coaster.- Chapter 9. Stripping the self away: security, control, and punishment in the practice of strip searches in Spanish prisons.- Chapter 10. Gendered punishment and protest in a context of conflict: Strip searching in Northern Ireland.- Chapter 11. "There's a tech for that": balancing dignity and security in carceral settings through alternative technology devices.- Chapter 12. What future for body searches in prisons?.