Othering in Penal Policy and Practice: A cross-national study of imprisonment in Australia and Sweden

By way of cross-national comparison between Sweden and Australia, this project will examine the ways in which many prison systems has become places where both inmates and staff are dehumanised and where varying degrees of harm and/or violence are inflicted on the other without moral restraint. A theory of social distancing will be applied to institutions of punishment to consider the ways in which 'othering' of prisoners as individuals and prisons as institutions are achieved. Empirical research in both countries will inform this innovative and normative framework, and the project will suggest ways in which such processes can be reversed.