From nineteenth-century broad arrows and black and white stripes to twenty first-century orange jumpsuits, prison clothing has both mirrored and bolstered the power of penal institutions over prisoners’ lives. Vividly illustrated and based on original research, including throughout the voices of the incarcerated, this book is a pioneering history and investigation of prison dress, which demystifies the experience of what it is like to be an imprisoned criminal. Juliet Ash takes the reader on a journey from the production of prison clothing to the bodies of its wearers. She uncovers a history characterized by waves of reform, sandwiched between regimes that use clothing as punishment and discovers how inmates use their dress to surmount, subvert or survive these punishment cultures. She reveals the hoods, the masks, and pink boxer shorts, near nakedness, even twenty first-century "civvies" to be not just other types of uniform but political embodiments of the surveillance of everyday life.
Author(s): Juliet Ash
Publisher: I. B. Tauris
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 238
CONTENTS......Page 8
LIST OF FIGURES......Page 10
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......Page 12
INTRODUCTION: Unravelling Prison Clothing......Page 14
CHAPTER 1. From Near Naked to Uniforms, Pre-1800 to 1830s......Page 22
CHAPTER 2. Uniforms: Stripes, Broad Arrows and Aprons, 1830s to 1900......Page 42
CHAPTER 3. Seams of Change: The Abolition of Iconic Uniforms, 1900s to 1930s......Page 70
CHAPTER 4. Inside Out: From Extremes to Reform, Resistance and Back, 1930s to 1990s......Page 100
CHAPTER 5. Consumption as Redemption? Britain, 1950s to 1990s......Page 120
CHAPTER 6. Contemporary Prison Clothing: Inside turns Out......Page 152
CHAPTER 7. The View from Outside/Visions behind the Bars......Page 176
NOTES......Page 200
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 222
INDEX......Page 230
