Today is World Social Work Day and the theme of the day is relationships… In this piece of writing, I reflect on ways in which I might have deprived people of their dignity (despite my best intentions) when working as a criminal justice social worker in the East End of…
Post-publication, I’ve been doing my best to get the word out about the book in various ways. The most beautiful of these, without doubt, is Sandy Butler’s gorgeous film of the book launch, which includes footage of Jo Mango and Friends performing ‘Depth’ from the System Hold EP, of Louis…
On the day when the book is finally published, I’m really delighted to announce that the EP accompanying Pervasive Punishment – System Hold by Jo Mango and Friends – will be released separately in March 2019 on Olive Grove Records. In the meantime, you can learn more about it and how to…
This guest post comes from Ewan Glassford, one of those currently studying Pervasive Punishment as an Honours course at the University of Glasgow. What follows is his response to the reflective essay challenge set out in an earlier post… Ewan refers to the song ‘Blankface’ which I have discussed in…
This guest post comes from Aniysa Ruhi, one of the students currently studying Pervasive Punishment at the University of Glasgow. It is her ingenious, evocative and creative response to the reflective essay task outlined in my previous post. __________ Gardening has become a hobby of mine. I planted lavender in…
Over the last 7 weeks, since the start of this semester, I’ve been teaching a Sociology Honours class based on the book. We’re not quite finished yet (it’s a 10 week, 20 credit course), but reading some of the students’ initial work has inspired to write a little about the…
I’ve been pretty quiet on this blog since submitting the book manuscript back in June… catching my breath and preparing to resume normal duties mostly. The good news is that the book is now up on the publisher’s catalogue and can even be pre-ordered! See: Pervasive Punishment In other exciting…
This time last week I was ensconced in a lovely house in the beautiful Fife village of Anstruther (thanks Heather!), assembling the book chapters into something like a complete manuscript, which now stands at about 72,000 words. Aside from trying to iron out stylistic variations between the chapters and some…
I didn’t want to leave you for long with just the unhappy ending offered in the last post. So, here again is the plot summary, and then the happier ending… Joe has been placed on supervision (involving probation and electronic monitoring). Pauline is his supervisor. She is a somewhat battle-weary…
A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of travelling to the University of Chicago, the University of Minnesota and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (in New York) to talk about Pervasive Punishment. One of the lovely things about the Mid-Career Fellowship is that it provides some…