Louise Brangan – författare

Prisons are everywhere. Yet they are not everywhere alike. How can we explain the differences in cross-national uses of incarceration? The Politics of Punishment explores this question by undertaking a comparative sociological analysis of penal politics and imprisonment in Ireland and Scotland. Using archives and oral history, this book shows that divergences in the uses of imprisonment result from the distinctive features of a nation’s political culture: the different political ideas, cultural values and social anxieties that shape prison policymaking. Political culture thus connects large-scale social phenomena to actual carceral outcomes, illuminating the forces that support and perpetuate cross-national penal differences. The work therefore offers a new framework for the comparative study of penality. This is also an important work of sociology and history. By closely tracking how and why the politics of punishment evolved and adapted over time, we also yield rich and compelling new accounts of both Irish and Scottish penal cultures from 1970 to the 1990s. The Politics of Punishment will be essential reading for students and academics interested in the sociology of punishment, comparative penology, criminology, penal policymaking, law and social history.

Prisons are everywhere. Yet they are not everywhere alike. How can we explain the differences in cross-national uses of incarceration? The Politics of Punishment explores this question by undertaking a comparative sociological analysis of penal politics and imprisonment in Ireland and Scotland. Using archives and oral history, this book shows that divergences in the uses of imprisonment result from the distinctive features of a nation’s political culture: the different political ideas, cultural values and social anxieties that shape prison policymaking. Political culture thus connects large-scale social phenomena to actual carceral outcomes, illuminating the forces that support and perpetuate cross-national penal differences. The work therefore offers a new framework for the comparative study of penality. This is also an important work of sociology and history. By closely tracking how and why the politics of punishment evolved and adapted over time, we also yield rich and compelling new accounts of both Irish and Scottish penal cultures from 1970 to the 1990s. The Politics of Punishment will be essential reading for students and academics interested in the sociology of punishment, comparative penology, criminology, penal policymaking, law and social history.

This volume contains an Open Access ChapterAs a peripheral state within English-speaking criminology, Ireland is often overlooked in mainstream Anglophone theories of punitiveness and penal transformation. This edited collection addresses this deficit by bringing together leading scholars on Irish penal history and theory to make a case for Ireland’s wider theoretical relevance.Together, these chapters show in rich detail the trends and debates that have surround patterns of punishment in Ireland since the formation of the State in 1922. However, by being about twentieth century Irish penal history, the volume inherently foregrounds often absent perspectives in criminology and punishment, such as gender, postcoloniality, religion, rurality, and carcerality beyond the criminal justice system. This is more than a collection of Irish criminology, therefore; the social analysis of Irish penal history is undertaken as a contribution towards southernising criminology. The authors each seek to engage criminology in a wider epistemological re-imagining of what is meant by punitiveness, penal culture, and 'Anglophone' penal history.Opening up new avenues of exploration and collaboration, and showing how researchers might look beyond the usual problems, refine the mainstream trends, and rework the obvious questions, this collection demonstrates how the Irish perspective remains relevant for international researchers interested in punishment and history.

When the gates of the last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1996, Ireland moved on. Or so it seemed. 'Enraging ... superb' JOHN BANVILLE, Guardian‘Highly readable and intelligently engaging’ FINTAN O'TOOLE, Times Literary Supplement'A terrific unearthing of Ireland's shadowland. A landmark book' RORY CARROLL'Remarkable' Sunday Times ‘Powerful ... authoritative, passionate’ Mail on SundayPublished to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the last Laundry’s closure, The Fallen is the forgotten story of the Magdalene Laundries, told through the voices of the women who endured them, the nuns who presided over them and the communities that lived alongside them.Unflinching and compassionate, Louise Brangan draws on archives and survivors’ testimonies to dismantle long-held myths about what the Laundries were, who was sent to these places of violence and secrecy, and why. As we move from the past into the present, Brangan compels us not only to confront this shameful history, but to ask a deeper question: what do we choose to remember?‘An extraordinary gift ... This book is both an education and a page-turner. I am in awe of its meticulous scholarship, and the compelling clarity and courage of the writing. How I wish that it could be studied in every Irish school’ DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA'Critical, informed and beautifully written' MÁIRÉAD ENRIGHTWinner of the 2024 Royal Society of Literature Giles St Aubyn Award