16:00
Cambridge University
October 15
Institute of Criminology
In this lecture – the local ‘launch’ celebration – Alison will talk about her new book, Aristotle’s Prison: A Search for Humanity in Tragic Places. She will describe how doing research in prisons over a long period of time led her to the two poles of human experience: the desert (which is morally unbearable) and the oasis (where the life force is affirmed). She shows how these qualitatively different poles of human experience, starkly visible in prisons, shape outcomes, like suicide, violence, survival and moral growth. She shows how staff in outstanding prisons have different dispositions, practices and intentions from staff in other, more typical prisons. They operate with clear attention to security, order, and the use of authority, but hold these values in creative tension with positive underlying assumptions about prisoners, punishment and rehabilitation. They know when to use ‘intelligent trust’ and ‘intelligent doubt’. Aristotle called this kind of value-balancing ‘practical wisdom’. Further information and registration here: https: www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events