The Prison Security Fallacy: How the everyday use of force produces unequal security

According to the aims of imprisonment, prisons are supposed to provide security, protecting the public, staff and prisoners from harm. However, prisons fail to provide these protections. This chapter addresses the meaning, application and outcomes of prison ‘security’ by critically analyzing and theorizing data from an ethnographic study in an English male prison before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It finds that the use of force as a practice of security is a product of its own conditions, self-perpetuating a cycle of violence that produces unequal security. The paper challenges the meaning of prison security and invites researchers and policymakers to reconsider the role of the prison and what it is for or hopes to achieve.