Never Finished: Reconstructing a life and identity after long-term imprisonment

This fellowship builds upon my PhD which explored the impact of release on male life-sentenced prisoners’ identities and their experiences of returning to the community. A life sentence is the ultimate criminal sanction in England & Wales. In 2024, over 7,000 individuals were serving life sentences in England & Wales. There are three different types of life sentences in legislation but mandatory life sentences are this project’s focus. A mandatory life sentence is a court-imposed sentence for an individual convicted of murder, directing them to serve a minimum prison term –a ‘tariff’– before being considered for release by the Parole Board and subject to a life licence (Criminal Justice Act 2003). Despite most life-sentenced prisoners eventually being released from custody and returning to the community, we know strikingly little about the process of release for life-sentenced prisoners, and their experiences of re-entry after many years behind bars. Instead, studies that have examined ‘life after life imprisonment’ (Appleton, 2010; Coker and Martin, 1985) have all been cross-sectional, providing insights at a particular period in time post-release or upon recall to prison. My PhD helped to redress this imbalance by exploring the release experiences of life-sentenced prisoners longitudinally (i.e. before and after their release from prison), and in doing so generated theoretical insights which are of wider relevance to studies of imprisonment and release. Further, it provides the first account –longitudinal or otherwise– that explores post-release experiences and outcomes in England & Wales for those convicted of murder and subject to a mandatory life-sentence. My PhD focused on three areas of particular salience to these men’s release experiences, none of which had been explored previously for those released from life sentences: first, participants’ experiences of release on temporary licence and how such releases prepared them for release and re/settlement; second, the interaction between the ‘moral weight’ of murder and release trajectories, including what these men thought they deserved, their ability to move on, and their capacity to repair a morally injurious identity; and third, the function of social relations upon release and the power they hold in the re/integration process. All three of these areas were centred around the fact that these men were serving a mandatory life sentence for murder. Committing this particular offence changed the ways in which participants were seen by other people and how they saw themselves, whilst the length of time they had spent imprisoned limited their understanding of how to function in the world outside. This fellowship will enable me to publicise and disseminate my findings, making them available to a range of audiences. To do so, I will use the fellowship to finalise my monograph (with Bristol University Press), to publish two new journal articles (for Punishment & Society and the European Journal of Criminology), to write a policy briefing to assist practitioners and policy makers and present at academic conferences. Throughout the fellowship, I will conduct a pilot study for a third round of interviews. This pilot will be used to develop a research proposal for fellowships and grants which would allow me to extend this project further. The final aim of this fellowship concerns professional development which will help to establish myself as a rising researcher. Such activities include further training in methods and analysis techniques and acquiring a postgraduate teaching certification.