Whilst much research of crime and carcerality focuses on the politics of intentional, detrimental spatial exclusion and confinement, there is a need also to consider how crime and spaces of carcerality are also ones of control and care. Critically considering how ‘care’, concern, development, and rehabilitation play out – past and present – projects within this strand shift understandings of carcerality to new empirical sites of focus (such as the workhouse) and areas of concern (youth justice). Focused on how historical workhouses functioned as sites of care in the 18^th century, to the contemporary workings of the youth justice estate in the 21^st century, projects here stretch and reorient understandings of crime and carcerality within theories of institutional ‘care’ and ‘concern’.

Research projects

2018-2023: Unlocking Carceral Geographies of Care: The Legacies of Wirral Workhouse-Hospitals 

This project led by Ella Bytheway-Jackson (University of Liverpool, UK) uses archival records of spaces, provisions and approaches to (health)care in the ‘carceral’ settings of workhouse-hospitals to reflect on current, local services and delivery. While the legacies of the poor laws remain contested, their physical legacies in workhouse buildings, infirmaries, schools and other systems and operations were transferred to municipal control and eventually the National Health Service in the 20th century. Consequently, as notorious institutions which continue to haunt landscapes up and down the country, the many untold stories of workhouses from their own vast records hold great potential for geographers. Developed alongside CASE partner, the Wirral Archives, this project focuses on workhouse historical geographies in the context of the Wirral and surrounding areas. Crucially, this project consequently hopes to raise local consciousness using a series of public and stakeholder outcomes. This research is funded by a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership Award) (GBP £80,838/€94.367) and and Dr Jennifer Turner (University of Oldenburg) is a supervisor.

Associated publications:

Price, J. and Turner, J. (2022) (Custodial) spaces to grow? Interrogating spaces of imprisonment during transitions and adolescent development. Journal of Youth Studies 25(2) 225-241