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Palgrave Macmillan

Body Searches and Imprisonment

  • Book
  • © 2023

Overview

Editors:
  1. Tom Daems

    1. Faculty of Law and Criminology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

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  • Examines one of the most controversial control measures in prisons
  • Explores body searches from different disciplinary angles and national perspectives
  • Offers in-depth discussions of the difficult balance between human dignity and prison security

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology (PSIPP)

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Body Searches as Contested Control Measures

    • Tom Daems
    Pages 1-6

  3. The Imposition of Power Through Touch: A Sensory Criminology Approach to Understanding Body Searches

    • Jason Warr
    Pages 7-25

  4. Searching, ‘State of Security’ and the Structuration of Prison Security

    • Jamie Bennett
    Pages 27-44

  5. Strip Searches: A Risky Practice That Needs to Be Monitored

    • Barbara Bernath
    Pages 45-65

  6. Strip Searches Through the Lens of the Prohibition of Inhuman and Degrading Treatment in European Human Rights Law

    • Natasa Mavronicola, Elaine Webster
    Pages 67-99

  7. Body Searches and Vulnerable Groups: Women and LGBTQI+ People in Prison

    • Aurore Vanliefde
    Pages 101-129

  8. Body Searches in Belgian Prisons: Dignity, Security and Denial

    • Tom Daems
    Pages 131-152

  9. Body Searches in French Prisons: Dignity and Security on a Roller Coaster

    • Joana Falxa
    Pages 153-175

  10. Stripping the Self Away: Security, Control, and Punishment in the Practice of Strip Searches in Spanish Prisons

    • Cristina Güerri
    Pages 177-214

  11. Gendered Punishment and Protest in a Context of Conflict: Strip Searching in Northern Ireland

    • Conor Byrne, Linda Moore
    Pages 215-240

  12. “There’s a Tech for That”: Balancing Dignity and Security in Carceral Settings Through Alternative Technology Devices

    • Anaïs Tschanz
    Pages 241-264

  13. What Future for Body Searches in Prisons?

    • Tom Daems
    Pages 265-268

  14. Correction to: Stripping the Self Away: Security, Control, and Punishment in the Practice of Strip Searches in Spanish Prisons

    • Cristina Güerri
    Pages C1-C1

  15. Back Matter

    Pages 269-271
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores and addresses body search practices in prison environments from different angles (criminology, sociology, human rights and law) and discusses such practices in different national contexts within Europe. Body searches are widely used in prison systems across the globe: they are perceived as indispensable to prevent forbidden substances, weapons or communication devices from entering the prison. However, these are also invasive and potentially degrading control techniques. It should not come as a surprise, then, that body searches are deeply contested security measures and that they have been widely debated and regulated. What makes theses control measures problematic in a prison context? How do these practices come to be regulated in an international and European context? How are rules translated into national law? To what extent are laws and rules respected, bent, circumvented and denied? And what does the future hold for body searches?  


Editors and Affiliations

  • Faculty of Law and Criminology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Tom Daems

About the editor

Tom Daems is Professor of Criminology at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), KU Leuven, Belgium. At LINC, he coordinates the research line on ‘Punishment and Control’. Daems has published widely on punishment and prisons, in particular from a European perspective. With Palgrave, he previously published Electronic Monitoring: Tagging Offenders in a Culture of Surveillance (2020) and Europe in Prisons: Assessing the Impact of European Institutions on National Prison Systems (2017, co-edited with Luc Robert).

 

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