What does it mean to hope when thesystem has already decided your fate?

In this episode, Dr Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Professor Harry Annison from Southampton Law School, about penal politics, the families of indeterminate-sentenced prisoners, and why storytelling is at the heart of how criminal justice systems change, or fail to.

Harry is one of the leading scholars of penal policy in England and Wales. His work sits at the intersection of criminology, law and political science, and draws on hundreds of interviewswith senior policymakers, practitioners, families, and people in the justice system. He has collaborated with the Prison Reform Trust and the Howard League for Penal Reform, and has completed multiple ESRC-funded projects including Rehabilitating Probation, a major longitudinal study of the re-nationalisation of probation services in England and Wales. His OUP monograph, Dangerous Politics, remains the definitive account of the politics of the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence.

In this conversation, Harry reflects on what drew him to parole and probation, the differences and unexpected similarities between interviewing elite policymakers and researching the families of those they govern. The episode focuses on his co-authored paper with Prof Rachel Condry, 'The Pains of Hope' (British Journal of Criminology, 2022), which examines the experiences of families of IPP-sentenced prisoners and their often extraordinary campaigns for justice.Harry explains how a sentence officially abolished in 2012 continues to imprison thousands, and what it costs the people who love them. The conversation also explores a thread running through much of Harry's work: the power of narrative and storyline in shaping, and sometimes distorting, criminaljustice policy. Harry also reflects candidly on his approach to writing and his experience as an editor across several leading journals.

This episode will interest anyone working in or thinking about penal reform, indeterminate sentencing, probation, policymaking, or the human costs of criminal justice.

Professor Harry Annison | SouthamptonLaw School

Key works discussed: Annison, H. & Condry, R. (2022). The painsof hope: families of indeterminate sentenced prisoners and political campaigning by lay citizens. British Journal of Criminology, 62(5), 1252–1269. doi:10.1093/bjc/azac039      Annison, H. (2015). Dangerous Politics: Risk, Political Vulnerability, and Penal Policy. Oxford University Press.

Annison, H., Burke, L., Carr, N., Millings, M., Robinson, G. & Surridge, E. (2023). Making good? A study of how seniorpolicy makers narrate policy reversal. British Journal of Criminology. doi:10.1093/bjc/azad054

Annison, H. (2022). The role of storylines in penal policy change. Punishment & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474521989533

Podcast researched & hosted by ⁠⁠Dr Omar Phoenix Khan⁠⁠,University of Bath.

Theme music by ⁠⁠SHEZ⁠⁠.