Sound, Order and Survival in Prison

‘From the personal feelings and thoughts of the author to the relationships made with staff and prisoners, to the important discussions of order and power, this book quite simply does it all.

'Sound, Order and Survival' is a compelling, powerful, and distinct body of work that carries importance within and beyond the field of prison literature.

This is an important book. It asks novel questions and breaks new ground on how we think about prisons.

Herrity’s written a profound book that’s unlike anything I’ve read in the field.’ Symposium review, The British Journal of Criminology

‘Like all the best ethnographic research, it offers the reader access to hidden experiences, revealing them with richness and complexity, and invites critical engagement with difficult questions about institutions and society. This is an innovative and insightful book.’ Prison Service Journal

'This book will be a key source as we move forward in seeking to fully understand sound as an aspect of carceral experiences and environments.' Crime, Media, Culture

'This is a poignant, at times poetic, book about prison sound but it is also much more. A book that will be of use to criminologists interested in prisons and the pervasive nature of penal power, prison societies and carceral geography.' Punishment & Society

'Herrity not only maps new terrain but also begins to develop the language needed to study it. Her book offers a novel framework for analyzing incarceration and a methodological invitation to attend more closely to the sensory dimensions of institutional life, and to listen where sociology has too often remained silent.' Symbolic Interaction

'Kate Herrity's research on the sounds of prison life is one of the most vivid – or rather, resonant – new contributions to prison studies in many a long year. It refreshes our feel for what is involved in inhabiting that world as very few other studies have done. Our methods and our concepts for apprehending that reality can never be quite the same again.' Richard Sparks, University of Edinburgh