Resisting and enabling domination: voluntary organizations’ efforts to regulate prison and police detention
Voluntary organisations working in prisons and police custody push back against the arbitrary power that dominates detainees’ lives, but they may also reinforce it. Drawing on interviews with 61 practitioners and analysis of 172 documents, Hall and Tomczak identify four ways charities work against domination: providing legal information to detainees, holding authorities to account, campaigning for rule changes, and supporting prisoner-led participation. Each, however, has limitations and may simultaneously reinforce domination. Organisations may encourage detainees to comply with coercive rules, prioritise campaigns that attract funding over prisoners’ actual interests, and exercise unacknowledged power over those they seek to help. Genuine reduction of domination, the authors argue, requires voluntary organisations to critically examine their own role in reproducing it.
| PUBLISHED: | 15 February 2025 |
| JOURNAL: | British Journal of Criminology |
| AUTHOR(S): | Dr Matty Hall & Prof Philippa Tomczak |
| LINK: | doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azaf091 |
We Need to Talk About Court Custody
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people in England and Wales are held in court custody, a largely invisible and unresearched form of criminal justice detention. Drawing on interviews with people who had experienced court custody, alongside inspectorate reports, the study identifies three core problems: poor physical cell conditions, the psychological toll of long and uncertain waits, and the pain of judgement. The paper argues that court custody is a distinct form of incarceration, and one that is a critical site of criminal justice transitions that significantly impacts other sites of criminal justice imprisonment.
| PUBLISHED: | 2 April 2026 |
| JOURNAL: | The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice |
| AUTHOR(S): | Dr Tom Kemp & Prof Philippa Tomczak |
| LINK: | doi.org/10.1111/hojo.70032 |
Volunteer monitoring of police and prison detention: Independent custody visitors and independent monitoring boards in England and Wales
This article examines volunteer detention monitoring using original empirical data about prison Independent Monitoring Boards and police Independent Custody Visitors. Drawing on 129 interviews with detainees, custody staff and monitors, we find that volunteer monitors: (a) are inconsistently accessible to detainees, (b) face barriers observing and evaluating detention, (c) are viewed as low-status, low-impact actors and focus on individual bureaucratic failings rather than systemic issues and (d) face difficulties navigating inherent institutional power dynamics that challenge the independence of monitoring, exert pressure on monitors to be unobtrusive and deferential, and assimilate monitoring into processes of custodial control.
| PUBLISHED: | 17 March 2026 |
| JOURNAL: | European Journal of Criminology |
| AUTHOR(S): | Dr Tom Kemp & Prof Philippa Tomczak |
| LINK: | doi.org/10.1177/14773708261426840 |
How regulation constructs and constrains the problems of imprisonment: a case study of prison regulation in England and Wales
Prison regulation is commonly conceptualised as an independent factfinding and assessment exercise, providing vital oversight and accountability. We argue that prison regulation is more productively understood as a site of problematisation. We explore four central questions: (a) how does regulatory discourse construct the problems of imprisonment? (b) how do socio-material regulatory practices shape problem construction? (c) how might practices of problem articulation be reconfigured? (d) what are the potential dangers of this reconfiguration? We demonstrate that, currently, prison regulators in England and Wales present problems primarily as accumulations of localised deficiencies within establishments, displacing essential questions about prisons’ functions and effectiveness.
| PUBLISHED: | 30 July 2026 |
| JOURNAL: | Punishment & Society |
| AUTHOR(S): | Dr Tom Kemp & Prof Philippa Tomczak |
| LINK: | doi.org/10.1177/14624745261455340 |