This book is designed to acquaint students with some of the main issues associated with the emergence and development of the modern prison. It draws on a range of sociological theorising in order to analyse the organisation and the functioning of the prison. It examines the conditions for the expansion of the prison and explores the possibilities for limiting prison use through the development of alternatives to custody. In particular, it looks in some detail at the relation between imprisonment and class, age, gender and race.

Roger Matthews is Professor of Criminology at London South Bank University, UK. He is Head of the Crime Reduction and Community Safety Research Group. He is sole author of Armed Robbery and Prostitution, Politics and Policy . He has also produced joint authored texts on community safety and edited a number of books on criminological theory, imprisonment and crime control.