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Palgrave Macmillan

Ethnicity, Race and the Prisoner Community

Shaping Meanings in Finnish Male Prisons

  • Book
  • Jul 2024

Overview

  • Explores the various roles that ethnicity and race hold in the prison social environment
  • Based on a unique ethnographic study and methods
  • Considers the contested state of race and racism in Finnish society and dynamics of its whiteness

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

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Keywords

  • Scandinavian prison
  • Minorities in prison
  • Prison culture
  • Prison heirarchy
  • Prisoner safety
  • Prison order
  • Male prison

About this book

This book draws on an in-depth ethnographic study to explore the meanings and consequences of race and ethnicity in daily life within two Finnish male prisons. Set within the context of Finnish immigration, it provides an excellent backdrop for studying social processes in the prison environment launched by a rapid growth in the number of foreign national prisoners. It builds on the sociological attempts to comprehend the nature of the prisoner community from the perspective of ethnicity and race which has gained attention since the 2000s. It explores how ethnic categories are formed in the prison space, prisoner hierarchy and its logics, conflicts and conflict-solving, discrimination and prison officers and development of distinctive prisoner cultures. The study captures the consequences that signifying ethnicity and race have on daily practices, equality, and safety in prison. This book shows how ethnic and racial categories are formed in social action and further, how their meanings are in a constant process of change. 

Authors and Affiliations

  • Finnish Youth Research Society, Helsinki, Finland

    Helena Huhta

About the author

Helena Huhta works at the Faculty of Law of the University of Turku, Finland. Before that she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Finnish Youth Research Society.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Ethnicity, Race and the Prisoner Community

  • Book Subtitle: Shaping Meanings in Finnish Male Prisons

  • Authors: Helena Huhta

  • Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Law and Criminology, Law and Criminology (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-54989-2Due: 11 August 2024

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-54992-2Due: 11 August 2024

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-54990-8Due: 11 August 2024

  • Series ISSN: 2753-0604

  • Series E-ISSN: 2753-0612

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Illustrations: 16 b/w illustrations

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