Visions of Prisons - Wars, Walls, and Watching

Visions of Prisons is an inquiry into the enduring meaning of containment and surveillance in post-conflict societies. With a focus on the partitioned cities of Northern Ireland and divided Berlin, Michael Welch details how war led to the construction of walls that in turn produced coercive forms of watching. Long after the end of the armed conflicts that first gave rise to these structures, the walls continued to perpetuate an urban environment that imagined certain people kept inside a designated social space and others kept out. Merging penology with surveillance studies, Visions of Prisons grounds its theoretical exploration in the author's own photographs, which invite readers to participate in an interdisciplinary visual analysis of salient sites in the former East Germany and Northern Ireland.

About the author

Michael Welch is Professor at Rutgers University and Visiting Professor at the Mannheim Centre for Criminology in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics. He is author of several books, including The Bastille Effect and Escape to Prison.

Product details

• Authors: Michael Welch
• Publisher: University Presses
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 27.03.2026
• EAN: 9780520423220
• ISBN: 978-0-520-42322-0
• No. of pages: 276
• Illustrations: 25 b-w figures
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Berlin, HISTORY / Europe / Germany, Germany, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Criminology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Penology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Urban, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century, Northern Ireland, Crime and criminology, Crime & criminology, Penology and punishment, Urban communities, Penology & punishment, Urban communities / city life