Marco Nocente is a postdoctoral fellow in carceral geography at the University of Milano-Bicocca. His works explore Italian prison landscapes from an abolitionist perspective. The main topic of his doctoral research, from which this book was born, is prison governmentality. His current research is on the relationship between prison, society and spectacle. The study concerns new carceral spaces beyond prison and the cultural understanding of prison and punishment within society. He publishes on these topics in Italian and English.

01. Introduction

1. The research and the researcher: prison letters, method, and positionality

2. Prison governmentality, dialogue between carceral geography and critical criminology

3. Carceral governmentality: spatial and discursive practises across OLGa's letters.

4. Reflections

Narratives on Prison Governmentality explores prison governmentality through the analysis of letters of prisoners. The collection of testimonies represents the opportunities and difficulties of resisting in a place of power, which, in recent years, has become more sophisticated and effective.
In recent years there has been a progressive individualisation of the prison population and a continuous erosion of solidarity. The condition of prisoners is influenced by renewed governmental logic that has become more effective for management and even reproduced by the prisoners themselves. Italian prison governmentality has been presented in its softest and hardest discursive forms and material regimes as part of a whole differentiated repertoire. Through the narratives of prison letters, the book shows the sophistication of these carceral logics from the perspective of prisoners engaged in the struggle. Engaging theories of carceral geography and critical criminology, the book focuses on space and time as the dimensions from which to observe power relations and governmentality.
Narratives on Prison Governmentality will be of great interest to students and scholars of Penology, Narrative Criminology, Carceral Geography, and Critical Criminology.