Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the role of boredom and boredom-aversion in the everyday life of youth imprisonment. Data are drawn from an ethnographic study in Danish secure care facilities and include both participant observation and interviews with the confined youth. Drawing on theories of boredom and the creation of action through risk-taking edgework, the analyses demonstrate how boredom is a key experience in everyday life under confinement. Waiting time is a defining aspect of the boredom that young people experience, and the youth spent much time “doing nothing,” finding it difficult to relate to the institutional routines. Analyses show that the young people, both on the inside and on the outside, deal with experiences of boredom through the generation of action. These pockets of action and excitement, although helping the youth to break with boredom and to keep up their spirits under imprisonment, did not change their dominant experience of lacking control over both their daily life and their future. The chapter thus demonstrates that while boredom was a key experience of their imprisonment, it was also a well-known experience from their everyday life on the outside.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The total population aged 15–18 was approximately 345,000. A total of 535 were placed in secure care facilities in 2018 and those not placed under remand were placed for observation or protection.
- 2.
The facilities are regulated by the child protection act and further regulated by a special legislation for the confinement of minors.
References
Abrams, L. S., & Anderson-Nathe, B. (2013). Compassionate confinement: A year in the life of unit c. Rutgers: University Press. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306115588487.
Anderson, B. (2004). Time-stilled space-slowed: How boredom matters. Geoforum, 35(6 special issue), 739–754. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2004.02.005.
Armstrong, S. (2018). The cell and the corridor: Imprisonment as waiting, and waiting as mobile. Time and Society. SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England, 27(2), 133–154. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X15587835.
Barbalet, J. M. (1999). Boredom and social meaning. The British journal of sociology, 50(4), 631–646. https://doi.org/10.1080/000713199358572.
Bengtsson, T. T. (2012a). Boredom and action-experiences from youth confinement. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 41(5), 526–553. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241612449356.
Bengtsson, T. T. (2012b). Learning to become a “gangster”? Journal of Youth Studies, 15(6). https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2012.671930.
Bengtsson, T. T. (2015). Controlling young people through treatment and punishment. In Bengtsson, T.T., Frederiksen, M., & Larsen J.E. (eds), The Danish welfare state: A sociological investigation. doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137527318.
Bengtsson, T. T. (2016). Performing hypermasculinity: Experiences with confined young offenders. Men and Masculinities, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X15595083.
Bengtsson, T. T. (2020). Informed consent as a situated research process in an ethnography of incarcerated youth in Denmark. In P. Billett, M. Hart, & D. Martin (Eds.), Complexities of researching with young people (pp. 130–142). Abingdon: Routledge.
Bengtsson, T. T., & Ravn, S. (2019). Youth, risk, routine: A new perspective on risk-taking in young lives. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315440767.
Cohen, S., & Taylor, L. (1972). Psychological surival. The experience of long-term imprisonment. Harmondsworth: Pelican Books.
Collison, M. (1996). In search of the high life: Drugs, crime, masculinities and consumption. British Journal of Criminology. Narnia, 36(3), 428–444. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a014104.
Conrad, P. (1997). It’s boring: Notes on the meanings of boredom in everyday life. Qualitative sociology as everyday life, 20(4), 123–133. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024747820595.
Corrigan, P. (1975). Doing nothing. In S. Hall & T. Jefferson (Eds.), Resistance through rituals: Youth subcultures in post-war Britain (pp. 84–87). Abingdon: Routledge.
Cox, A. (2011). Doing the programme or doing me? The pains of youth imprisonment. Punishment & Society. SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England, 13(5), 592–610. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474511422173.
Cox, A. (2017). Trapped in a vice: The consequences of confinement for young people. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soz071.
Crewe, B. (2011). Depth, weight, tightness: Revisiting the pains of imprisonment. Punishment & Society. SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England, 13(5), 509–529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474511422172.
Danish Regions. (2018). Den årlige statistik på de sikrede institutioner 2017 (Year statistic for the Danish secure facilities).
Darden, D. K., & Marks, A. H. (1999). Boredom: A socially disvalued emotion. Sociological Spectrum. Informa UK Ltd, 19(1), 13–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/027321799280280.
Donzelot, J. (1979). The policing of families. New York: Random House.
Earle, R. (2011). Boys’ zone stories: Perspectives from a young men’s prison. Criminology & Criminal Justice. SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England, 11(2), 129–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895811398458.
Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (2011). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Enell, S. (2017). I got to know myself better, my failings and faults. Young. SAGE Publications Sage India: New Delhi, India, 25(2), 124–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308816638978.
Ferrell, J. (2017). Boredom, crime and criminology. In K. Hayward (Ed.), Cultural criminology (pp. 179–194). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315095202-8.
Flaherty, M. G. (2002). Making time: Agency and the construction of temporal experience. Symbolic Interaction, 25(3), 379–388. https://doi.org/10.1525/si.2002.25.3.379.
Flaherty, M. G. (2003). Time work: Customizing temporal experience. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(1), 17–33. https://doi.org/10.2307/3090138.
Furlong, A. (2009). The emergence of emerging adulthood. In A. Furlong (Ed.), Handbook of youth and young adulthood: New perspectives and agendas. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Furlong, A., Woodman, D., & Wyn, J. (2011). Changing times, changing perspectives: Reconciling “transition” and “cultural” perspectives on youth and young adulthood. Journal of Sociology, 47(4), 355–370. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783311420787.
Goffman, E. (1991). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. London: Penguin Books.
Hayward, K. (2007). Situational crime prevention and its discontents: Rational choice theory versus the ‘culture of now’. Social Policy & Administration. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd (10.1111), 41(3), 232–250. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9515.2007.00550.x.
Katz, J. (1988). Seductions of crime: moral and sensual attractions in doing evil.
Lyng, S. (1990). Edgework: A social psychological analysis of voluntary risk taking. American Journal of Sociology. University of Chicago Press, 95(4), 851–886. https://doi.org/10.1086/229379.
Lyng, S. (2004a). Crime, edgework and corporeal transaction. Theoretical Criminology. Sage PublicationsSage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA, 8(3), 359–375. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480604044614.
Lyng, S. (Ed.). (2004b). Edgework: The sociology of risk-taking. New York and London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004.
Matza, D., & Sykes, G. M. (1961). Juvenile delinquency and subterranean values. American Sociological Review, 26(5), 712–719.
Meisenhelder, T. (1985). An essay on time and the phenomenology of imprisonment. Deviant Behavior. Taylor & Francis Group, 6(1), 39–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.1985.9967658.
Messerschmidt, J. W. (2000). Becoming “real men”: Adolescent masculinity challenges and sexual violence. Men and Masculinities. Sage Publications, Inc., 2(3), 286–307. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X00002003003.
Miles, S. (2000). Youth lifestyles in a changing world. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
OHCHR. (1989). Convention on the rights of the child. Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989.
Sandberg, S. (2009). Gangster, victim or both? The interdiscursive construction of sameness and difference in self-presentations. The British Journal of Sociology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd (10.1111), 60(3), 523–542. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2009.01254.x.
Sandberg, S., Tutenges, S., & Copes, H. (2015). Stories of violence: A narrative criminological study of ambiguity. British Journal of Criminology, 55(6), 1168–1186. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azv032.
Scarce, R. (2002). Doing time as an act of survival. Symbolic Interaction. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 25(3), 303–321. https://doi.org/10.1525/si.2002.25.3.303.
Soyer, M. (2014). The imagination of desistance: A juxtaposition of the construction of incarceration as a turning point and the reality of recidivism’. British Journal of Criminology. Narnia, 54(1), 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azt059.
Tani, S. (2014). The Right to be Seen, the Right to be Shown: Ethical Issues Regarding the Geographies of Hanging Out. YOUNG, 22(4), 361–379. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308814548102.
Wahidin, A. (2006). Time and the prison experience. Sociological Research Online. SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England, 11(1), 127–138. https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.1245.
Wästerfors, D. (2011). Disputes and going concerns in an institution for “Troublesome” boys. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 40(1), 39–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241610377199.
Wästerfors, D. (2016). Playfights as trouble and respite. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. SAGE PublicationsSage CA: Los Angeles, CA, 45(2), 168–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241614554087.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bengtsson, T.T. (2021). Boredom: A Key Experience of Youth Imprisonment. In: Cox, A., Abrams, L.S. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Youth Imprisonment. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68759-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68759-5_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-68758-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-68759-5
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)