Prisons, State and Violence (eBook)

This book provides a unique analysis of prisons and the violence at work inside them. It not only addresses aspects such as racial discrimination, especially in US prisons, but also gender differences, specific criminal groups operating within prisons, the reintegration processes and its failures. Combining works by various authors, it presents diverse perspectives on prison violence: in countries ranging from the USA to Australia, crossing European countries such as Portugal and Spain, among others, but also specific aspects such as prohibitions on phone calls, the economic crisis, and the current challenges of mass incarceration. As such, it offers a broad overview of several problems relevant to all scholars interested in deepening their understanding of violence in prisons.

Maria João Guia has been a European Commission External Expert in the area of 'Security, Liberty and Justice (2014)' after being an alternate member of the Group of Experts on Trafficking in Human Beings. She has been working professionally in criminal investigation, borders and document control in the area of migrations. She is also an invited Assistant Professor of European Studies at the Facuty of Arts, University of Coimbra, after being an invited Assistant Professor on the Master of Criminology and in the Degree of Law at the Superior Institute Bissaya Barreto in Coimbra. She keeps lecturing in PhDs, Masters, Post-Graduations, Degrees and Training courses of various areas of knowledge, on the intersection of Sociology, Law and Criminology. Maria João Guia is national expert and researcher in several European and national projects, namely in the areas of the rights of victims of crimes, human trafficking and the rights of immigrants, currently expert on the European Migration Network (EMN) and director of CINETS.She is also the co-chair of the Working Group 'Immigration, Crime and Citizenship,' together with May-Len Skilbrei at the European Society of Criminology. 

Sílvia Gomes holds a PhD in Sociology (2013) and is currently a post-doctoral researcher with a project entitled 'Reentry, Recidivism and Desistance: A longitudinal study with ex- and re- prisoners', funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BPD/102758/2014) and based at the University of Minho, Florida State University and University of Amsterdam. She is a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences (CICS.NOVA), and a guest lecturer at the University Institute of Maia. Author of several books, book chapters and papers in scientific journals, her main areas of research are focused on crime and media, crime and ethnicity, prison studies, intersectional approaches, and social inequalities. More recently she has also been focused on topics such as life-course criminology, prison re-entry, recidivism and criminal desistance.