Abstract
This chapter explores the temporal experience of life in an extended lockdown within Scottish prisons during the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on data from a wider research project, the Scotland in Lockdown study, the chapter focuses on qualitative survey data, letters, and reflective accounts from people living in Scottish prisons between March and October 2020. We discuss how uncertainty about the future and the loss of daily routine led to temporal disorientation as people felt trapped in an extended ‘now’, blurring temporal boundaries and traditional markers of prison time. Next, we consider the changing value of time as a commodity within the context of limited time out of cells and time lost outside or with loved ones. Lastly, we introduce the notion of ‘hollow’ time to conceptualise the complexities of time in prison during a pandemic. We argue that hollow time was a crushing burden that made people feel that their time did not matter, and, in turn, that they did not matter. The monotony of hollow time amplified the ways in which prison is already harmful and damaging, and the temporality of this extended lockdown regime removed the resources people needed to survive, while enhancing the precarity of their situations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
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 ‘top end’ refers to the National Top End which forms part of the progression toward release process for people serving long-term sentences (i.e. more than four years). Once at the ‘top end’, prisoners move to a separate part of a closed prison under less secure conditions with controlled access to the community through day release permissions or community-based work placements.
- 2.
Virtual visits were monitored both electronically and in-person by prison staff who could terminate the visit if there was a breach of the code of conduct (for more information, see SPS, 2020).
References
Adam, B. (1990). Time and social theory. Polity Press.
Alheit, P. (1994). Everyday time and life time: On the problems of healing contradictory experiences of time. Time & Society, 3(3), 305–319.
Armstrong, S. (2018). The cell and the corridor: Imprisonment as waiting, and waiting as mobile. Time & Society, 27(2), 133–154.
Armstrong, S., Barkas, B., Casey, R., Cornish, N., Gormley, C., McNeill, F., & Schinkel, M. (2022). Prisoner experiences of Covid-19 restrictions in Scotland during 2020. Available at: https://scotlandinlockdown.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/prisoner-survey-briefing-final.pdf (Accessed 04 April 2022).
Baer, L. D., & Ravneberg, B. (2008). The outside and inside in Norwegian and English prisons. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 90(2), 205–216.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.
Brekhus, W. (1998). A sociology of the unmarked: Redirecting our focus. Sociological Theory, 16(1), 34–51.
Brown, A. (1998). ’Doing time’: The extended present of the long-term prisoner. Time & Society, 7(1), 93–103.
Casey, R., McNeill, F., Barkas, B., Cornish, N., Gormley, C., & Schinkel, M. (2021). Pervasive punishment in a pandemic. Probation Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/02645505211050871
Cohen, S., & Taylor, L. (1972). Psychological survival: The experience of long-term imprisonment. Penguin.
Cohen, S., & Taylor, L. (1976/1992). Escape attempts: The theory and practice of resistance to everyday life. Allen Lane.
Cornish, N. (2019). Vulnerability and the protection of prisoners in Scotland and England. Howard League ECAN Bulletin, 41(1), 17–23.
Crewe, B. (2011a). Depth, weight, tightness: Revisiting the pains of imprisonment. Punishment & Society, 13(5), 509–529.
Crewe, B. (2011b). Soft power in prison: Implications for staff–prisoner relationships, liberty and legitimacy. European Journal of Criminology, 8(6), 455–468.
Crewe, B., & Ievins, A. (2021). ‘Tightness’, recognition and penal power. Punishment & Society, 23(1), 47–68.
Flanagan, T. (1981). Dealing with long-term confinement: Adaptive strategies and perspectives among long-term prisoners. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 8(2), 201–222.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Allen Lane.
Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. In H. L. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault (2nd ed.). Chicago University Press.
Fraser, A., & Matthews, D. (2021). Towards a criminology of atmospheres: Law, affect and the codes of the street. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 21(4), 455–471.
Frisby, D. (2013). Fragments of modernity: Theories of modernity in the work of Simmel, Kracauer and Benjamin. Routledge Revivals Series. Routledge.
Garland, D. (1997). ’Governmentality’ and the problem of crime: Foucault, criminology, sociology. Theoretical Criminology, 1(2), 173–214.
Goffman, E. (1959/1990). The presentation of self in everyday life. Penguin Press.
Goffman, E. (1961/1991). Asylums: Essays on the situation of mental patients and other inmates. Penguin Press.
Gormley, C., Schinkel, M., Barkas, B., Casey, R., Cornish, N., & McNeill, F. (2020). Criminal justice involved. In Scotland in Lockdown Team (Ed.), Left out and locked down: Impacts of Covid-19 lockdown for marginalised groups in Scotland (pp. 57–66). Available at: https://scotlandinlockdown.co.uk/project-report/ (Accessed 14 November 2021).
Haney, C. (2003). Mental health issues in long-term solitary and “supermax” confinement. Crime & Delinquency, 49(1), 124–156.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Harper & Row.
Herrity, K. (2020). Hearing behind the door: The cell as a portal to prison life. In J. Turner & V. Knight (Eds.), The prison cell (pp. 239–259). Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons Scotland. (2011). Review of the arrangements for progressing prisons from closed to open conditions: Thematic report. Available at: https://www.prisonsinspectoratescotland.gov.uk/publications/review-arrangements-progressing-prisoners-closed-open-conditions (Accessed 16 November 2021).
Jamieson, R., & Grounds, A. (2005). Release and adjustment: Perspectives from studies of wrongly convicted and politically motivated prisoners. In A. Liebling & S. Maruna (Eds.), The effects of imprisonment (pp. 33–65). Willan Publishing.
Jefferson, A. M., Caracciolo, G., Kørner, J., & Nordberg, N. (2021). Amplified vulnerabilities and reconfigured relations: COVID-19, torture prevention and human rights in the Global South. State Crime Journal, 10(1), 147–169.
Jewkes, Y. (2005). Loss, liminality and the life sentence: Managing identity through a disrupted lifecourse. In A. Liebling & S. Maruna (Eds.), The effects of imprisonment (pp. 366–388). Willan Publishing.
Kaun, A., & Stiernstedt, F. (2020). Doing time, the smart way? Temporalities of the smart prison. New Media and Society, 22(9), 1580–1599.
King, R. D., & McDermott, K. (1989). British prisons 1970–1987: The ever-deepening crisis. British Journal of Criminology, 29(2), 107–128.
Kotova, A. (2019). ‘Time … lost time’: Exploring how partners of long-term prisoners experience the temporal pains of imprisonment. Time & Society, 28(2), 478–498.
Lawrence, B. D. (2020). An avoidable crisis: The Doreen Lawrence review. Available at: https://www.lawrencereview.co.uk/ (Accessed 14 November 2021).
Matthews, R. (2009). Doing time: An introduction to the sociology of imprisonment (2nd ed.). Palgrave MacMillan.
Maycock, M., & Dickson, G. (2021). Analysing the views of people in custody about the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Scottish Prison Estate. International Journal of Prisoner Health, 17(3), 320–334.
Medlicott, D. (1999). Surviving in the time machine: Suicidal prisoners and the pains of prison time. Time & Society, 8(2), 211–230.
Meisenhelder, T. (1985). An essay on time and phenomenology of imprisonment. Deviant Behavior, 6(1), 39–56.
Moran, D. (2014). Leaving behind the ‘total institution’? Teeth, transcarceral spaces and (re)inscription of the formerly incarcerated body. Gender, Place and Culture, 21(1), 35–51.
Neale, J. (2016). Iterative Categorization (IC): A systematic technique for analysing qualitative data. Addiction, 111(6), 1096–1106.
O’Donnell, I. (2014). Prisoners, solitude and time. Clarendon Press.
Portschy, J. (2020). Times of power, knowledge and critique in the work of Foucault. Time & Society, 29(2), 392–419.
Scarce, R. (2002). Doing time as an act of survival. Symbolic Interaction, 25(3), 303–321.
Schaff, L. A. (2005). The mind of the modernist. Time & Society, 14(1), 5–23.
Scotland in Lockdown Team. (2020). Left out and locked down: Impacts of Covid-19 lockdown for marginalised groups in Scotland. Available at: https://scotlandinlockdown.co.uk/project-report/ (Accessed 14 November 2021).
Scott, S. (2018). A sociology of nothing: Understanding the unmarked. Sociology, 52(1), 3–19.
Scottish Prisoner Advocacy and Research Collective (SPARC). (2021). Covid-19 updates. Available at: https://scottishprisoneradvocacy.com/covid-19-updates/ (Accessed 17 November 2021).
Scottish Prison Service (SPS). (2020, June 10). Virtual visits—Frequently asked questions. Available at: https://www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Information/covid19/Information-for-families-and-friends.aspx (Accessed 8 March 2022).
Sobande, F. (2020). ‘We’re all in this together’: Commodified notions of connection, care and community in brand responses to COVID-19. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 23(6), 1033–1037.
Toch, H. (2001). The future of supermax confinement. The Prison Journal, 81(3), 376–388.
Turner, V. (1967). The forests of symbols: Aspects of Ndembu ritual. Cornell University.
Turner, V. (1969/1995). Ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Adeline de Gruyter.
UNODC. (2015). Handbook on dynamic security and prison intelligence. United Nations.
Wahidin, A. (2006). Time and the prison experience. Sociological Research Online, 11(1), 104–113.
Wahidin, A., & Tate, S. (2005). Prison (e)scapes and body tropes: Older women in the prison time machine. Body & Society, 11(2), 59–79.
Funding
This work was part of the “Scotland in Lockdown: Health and Social Impacts of Covid-19 Suppression for Vulnerable Groups in Scotland” and was supported by Chief Scientist Office (Scottish Government) funding, Grant Number COV/GLA/20/12.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gormley, C., Reilly, J., Casey, R. (2022). Unmarking Prison Time During the Covid-19 Pandemic. In: Carr, N., Robinson, G. (eds) Time and Punishment. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12108-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12108-1_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-12107-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-12108-1
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)