Dr. Ben Crewe - Biography

	Contact Details
	Room: 2.8
	Tel: +44 (0)1223 763914
	Email: bc247@cam.ac.uk

Penology Director and Deputy Director of Prisons Research Centre

Dr. Ben Crewe studied sociology at Robinson College, Cambridge, London School of Economics, and the University of Essex. His Ph.D. thesis led to a number of publications, including a research monograph - Representing Men: Cultural Production and Producers in the Men's Magazine Market - published by Berg Publishers (2003).

Ben’s last research project was an ethnographic study of the everyday social world of an English Prison. The study has generated a number of chapters and articles (listed below) and has been published as a research monograph by Oxford University Press, titled: The Prisoner Society: Power, Adaptation and Social Life in an English Prison.

•    The book has been reviewed in a number of journals:
•    The British Journal of Criminology
•    The Sociological Review
•    The Probation Journal
•    The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice
•    The International Criminal Justice Review
•    Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews
•    Social Forces
•    Punishment and Society

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199577965.do

• Crewe, B. (2011) 'Depth, weight, tightness: Revisiting the pains of imprisonment', Punishment and Society
• Crewe, B. (2011) 'Soft power in prison: Implications for staff-prisoner relationships, liberty and legitimacy ', European Journal of Criminology 2011; 8 455-468
• Crewe, B. (2007) 'Power, Resistance and Adaptation in the Late-Modern Prison'. British Journal of Criminology 47(2):256-275 (subscription required)
• Crewe, B. (2006) 'The Orientations of Male Prisoners towards Female Officers in an Engish Prison' Punishment and Society 8(4), 395-421 (subscription required)
• Crewe, B (2006) 'Prison Drug Dealing and the Ethnographic Lens', The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 45(4), 347-368
• Crewe, B. (2005) 'The Prisoner Society in the Era of Hard Drugs', Punishment and Society, 7(4): 457-481.
• Crewe, B. and Maruna, S. (2006) 'Self-Narratives and Ethnographic Fieldwork', in Hobbs, D. and Wright, R. (eds.) The Handbook of Fieldwork. Sage.
• Crewe, B. (2005) 'Codes and Conventions: The Terms and Conditions of Contemporary Inmate Values', in Liebling, A. and Maruna, S. The Effects of Imprisonment. Cullompton: Willan.
• Crewe, B (2004) 'The Drugs Economy and the Prisoner Society', Prison Service Journal 156, 9-14. (reproduced in Jewkes, Y. and Johnstone, H. (eds.) Prison Readings (2006) Cullompton: Willan.)

Other related publications include the following:

Willan Publishing

Routledge

• Bennett, J., Crewe, B. and Wahidin, A. (eds.) (2008) Understanding Prison Staff Cullompton. Willan.
• Crewe, B., Bennet, J. (2011) The Prisoner Routledge.
• Crewe, B. (in press) ‘Gresham Sykes’, in S. Maruna, J. Mooney and K. Hayward (eds.) Fifty Key Criminological Thinkers, London: Routledge.
• Crewe, B. (2007) ‘The Sociology of Prisons’, in Jewkes, Y. (ed.) The Handbook of Prisons. Cullompton: Willan.
• Crewe, B. (2007) ‘Social relations and hierarchy’, ‘The inmate code’, ‘Argot’ (with Tomer Einat), ‘Deprivations of Imprisonment’ (with Deborah Drake) and ‘Solidarity’ (with Deborah Drake) for The Dictionary of Prisons, Bennett, J. and Jewkes, Y. (eds.) Cullompton: Willan

Ben contributes to teaching within the department at various levels. He co-teaches an MPhil course on the 'Sociology of Prison Life', and has supervised dissertations on topics including drug testing in prison, prison performance testing and the relationship between prisoner culture and official policies. He is currently co-supervising four PhD students, working on faith-based prison units, therapeutic communities, the role of faith in desistance processes, and the relationships between prisoners and prison psychologists.

Ben is an International Associate Board member of Punishment and Society, and is an editorial board member of the Prison Service Journal. He has sat on the Perrie Lectures Committee since 2006.

Values, Practices and Outcomes in Public and Private Corrections

Currently, Ben is co-directing (with Professor Liebling) an ESRC-funded study of Values, Practices and Outcomes in Public and Private Corrections. The results of the study are now being published, in various forms:

• Crewe, B., Liebling, A. and Hulley, S. (2011) 'Staff culture, use of authority and prisoner quality of life in public and private sector prisons', Australia and New Zealand Journal of Criminology.
  http://anj.sagepub.com/content/44/1/94.full.pdf+html
  • You can hear Ben talking about this article, and the research on which it was based, on the following podcast:
    http://anj.sagepub.com/content/44/1/94/suppl/DC1
• Liebling, A., Crewe, B. and Hulley, S. (forthcoming, 2011) 'Values and Practices in Public and Private Sector Prisons: A Summary of Key Findings from an Evaluation', Prison Service Journal
• Crewe, B. and Liebling, A. (in press) 'Are liberal humanitarian penal values and practices exceptional?', in Ugelvik, T. And Dullum, J. (eds.) Nordic prison practice and policy – exceptional or not? Exploring penal exceptionalism in the Nordic context. Cullompton: Willan.
• Liebling, A., Hulley, S. and Crewe, B. (in press), 'Conceptualising and Measuring the Quality of Prison Life', in Gadd, D., Karstedt, S. and Messner, S. (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Criminological Research Methods. London: Sage.
• Crewe, B., Liebling, A. and Hulley, S. (under review) 'Prisoner quality of life in public and private sector prisons in England and Wales'.

Ben contributes to teaching within the department at various levels. He co-teaches an MPhil course on the 'Sociology of Prison Life', and has supervised dissertations on topics including drug testing in prison, prison performance testing and the relationship between prisoner culture and official policies. He is currently co-supervising four PhD students, working on faith-based prison units, therapeutic communities, the role of faith in desistance processes, and the relationships between prisoners and prison psychologists.

Ben is an International Associate Board member of Punishment and Society, and is an editorial board member of the Prison Service Journal. He has sat on the Perrie Lectures Committee since 2006.

Ben would be keen to supervise PhD students interested in researching prison social life and culture, prisoner identities and adaptations, prison quality and conditions, and other issues relating to the terms, nature and organisation of imprisonment.