Introduction

‘Masculinities’ as a topic for analysis is now increasingly recognised in academic criminological literature. Yet, in the majority of cases the ‘masculinity’ in question is seen in a particularly negative light. Violence (Butler, 2007; Ellis, 2013; McCorkle, 1992; Monaghan, 2002; Winlow et al, 2001) and sexual harm (Hayes, 2014; Howe, 2008; Moolman, 2011) as demonstrations of masculinity are not new associations, and neither is the use of masculinity-in-association as an analytical tool in criminology: men and race (Phillips, 2012), men and age (Crawley and Sparks, 2005; Harvey, 2012; Nayak, 2006) and men and class (Ellis, 2013; Nayak, 2006) are often seen discussed together. However, what is regularly missing in criminology is an analysis of masculinity as a standalone issue. Bearing in mind that 95 per cent of the prison population is male, there is an undeniable underpinning connection of masculinity that runs throughout criminal justice, but criminologists rarely engage with this, looking instead at other features of these men such as class, race and age. Interestingly, these ‘other’ features are often used to differentiate criminal men from ‘ordinary’ men and this process of differentiation in itself is inherently masculine in use (see Sloan, 2011): men often compare themselves to other men (and women) in order to place themselves on the hierarchy of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2005).

As such, looking at the similarities between men (in this case, within prison) can be useful in better understanding wider masculinities. This was one of the purposes of the doctoral research that is the basis of this chapter, which looked at masculinities and the adult male prison experience (Sloan, 2016; 2011). The research was an ethnographic study of an adult, male, category C prison in England: over a period of four months in 2009, I spent time on the wings, observed prisoners’ day-to-day lives, interviewed 31 male prisoners (aged between 21 and 55, with an average age of 31), and collected personal research diaries. Such an approach allowed the gendered dimension of incarceration to be somewhat triangulated for greater authenticity – from the words the men used to their lived behaviours, and the reactive reflections of an observer from the opposing gender. The sample was self-selecting but, when analysed, shared many of the common findings of other research studies into the lived prison experience and the implications for masculinity, which are rarely discussed.