Pain in police detention: a critical point in the ‘penal painscape’?

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse pain in police detention and the extent to which Sykes’ pains of imprisonment framework usefully informs this. This analysis is based on extensive in-depth qualitative research in four custody facilities in four English police forces. In parallel to Sykes, we found that detainees felt cut-off, as if they had nothing and had lost control, which were respectively akin to the deprivation of liberty, the deprivation of goods and services, and the deprivation of autonomy. However, moving beyond Sykes, police custody was also uncertain, anticipatory and liminal, and entailed insecurities derived from the material conditions and soundscape. All of these pains of police detention were furthermore enabled or minimised by how staff employed their authority. The synergy between the pains of police detention and the pains of imprisonment arise, in part because police custody has much in common with imprisonment. As such, police custody can be seen as an initial and thus critical point in the ‘penal chain’ or perhaps even the ‘penal painscape’, in which institutions within it have punitive tendencies in common, linked to the delivery of pain. This has implications for the police’s role in society and the role that the pain-punishment nexus plays in this. Pain in police work has traditionally been understood as largely physical in form and rooted in the use of force. As the pains of police detention show, these pains can be more situated, subtle, routine and far-reaching in their effects, potentially extending to other areas of police work.

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