Abstract
In the award winning Male, Failed, Jailed, David Maguire examines imprisonment (and reentry) in England – particularly the Hull region and in Manchester – as shaped by interpretations and influences of masculinities. He maps out how forms of masculinities influence criminalized behaviours among young males raised in impoverished and socially challenging conditions. Maguire, conducting most of his interviews at Hull Local Prison, explains the majority of men in his sample came from similar environments; too often feeling the ramifications of their low educational attainment and underemployment, as well as of growing up living in council-owned social housing. He rightly contends that living conditions, and social and formative influences, affect revolving-door imprisonment. He presents the entrenchment of local loyalty to the region among the men involved in his study from 2011 to 2015 (i.e., men were “born and bred”, “lived here all of our lives”; p. 71) as an impediment to successful labour market participation and the distancing of men from criminal ways of life.
Maguire grips the readers in starting his monograph by sharing his first-hand experiences as a prisoner in the same institution in which he, a decade later, conducted his research. However, he refutes claims of epistemological privilege of ‘insider’ positionality, and instead explains that his role as a former prisoner presented challenges rather than assisted with access. He continues with an analysis of the rise of critical men’s studies, maintaining that the links between masculinities and crime warrant more comprehensive examination given the overrepresentation of men both in prisons and in systems of justice. Presenting early discussions surrounding gender, including the notion of hegemonic masculinities, with respects to incarceration, he critically engages with Raewyn Connell’s relational concept of protest masculinities whereby males within the study gained an increasing sense of self and identity by displaying open defiance for and toward authority. Maguire links the gendered performances of participants in his study closely to the protest masculine identities of Connell; noting that protest masculinity, is “intrinsically linked to one’s class position. The consequences of early ‘bad boy’ forms of protest and limited resources make it much more difficult for poorer men to alter their masculine performances …” (p. 19). Here he carefully suggests a link between learned behaviours and presentations of masculinities deeply rooted in time, space, and thus environment that makes the reinvention of a masculine performance tantalizingly out of reach for most men.
Reflecting on scholarship of how men and boys navigate post-industrial masculinities, notably working-class masculinities, schooling, and attainment, Maguire focuses on regions of pronounced poverty in Manchester and Hull, and how young males in these regions experience the transition to adulthood. Recognizing that persons do age out of crime, Maguire references Barker (2015) to support that men, with limited or no access to labour market participation (given employment is a defining feature of masculinities), may be invested in protest masculinities. Although Maguire does not specifically note protest masculinities as problematic, he shows how expressions of machoism can become more pronounced through gradual escalation and increased involvement in gang violence. For his participants, how they self-identify as men can encourage rather than deter continued involvement in criminalized lifestyles associated with these performances of masculinities. Moreover, he shows how boys (and men) being surrounded by men modeling such gendered criminalized lifestyles further encourages continued gang involvement.
In Chapter 5, Maguire explores his participants criminal trajectories, drawing attention to the masculine posturing that manifested as “adrenaline-fueled buzz-based crimes” (p. 87). The importance of spaces are noted, and their influence on behaviour, as well as participant attachment to the early learned and performed masculinities they employed on the streets; the very space in which participants ‘became men’. Maguire shows the evolution and solidification of masculinities as pre-conditioned identities, where the youthful pass their time “fooling around” with nowhere to go. Masculinities forged through street-based relationships with older peers can, Maguire shows, lead to shared engagements, pitfalls, and consequences, all tied intrinsically to “being one of the lads” (p. 90). He reveals how experiences in their youth are precursors to most of his participants advancing from masculine posturing (machoism) and ‘adrenaline-rush crimes’ to experiences of violence in street versions of protest masculinities.
The extent men and boys in these circumstances are able to exert agency to avoid involvement in violence is open to question. Certainly, many participants in Maguire’s study adopted the unwritten rules of survival and rites of passage of the street, thereby advancing their standing among peers and others they revered. Maguire shows that for many of the interviewees, their identities, confidence levels, and sense of masculinities remained contingent on the rejection of classroom learning. The interviewees describe being keen to prove their manhood from an early age by belligerence, impressing older peers, and the facade of being a ‘rule breaker’—engaging in protest masculinities. As “the lads” grew, their criminal trajectory steepened, with petty crime as “a laff” quickly transforming into more violent endeavors. In essence, Maguire unpacks how masculinities were negotiated, leaving men vulnerable to criminal engagement as they strive to understand their own positioning and make sense of their environment.
Maguire argues in Chapter 6 that criminal activities, often leading to early incarceration, further sever the school-to-work connection, leaving men undereducated and thus adversely affected in gaining meaningful work. Lived experiences exacerbate the difficulties experienced by men seeking to turn away from the monetary gain associated with criminalized ways of being, as they seek out legitimate labour market participation—often to no avail. It is the biographical scars, notably street-worn bodies, long criminal records, and ex-con status, that limit employment options. Maguire contends, however, that “these men were not beyond redemption in terms of their future prospects” (Maguire, p. 134). He goes on to state in Chapter 6, that many prisoners had “had enough” of their criminalized lifestyles and the associated years lost to incarceration, noting his participants’ receptiveness to change upon release. While prison education and training give some support to prisoners, Maguire maintains that the effectiveness of in-prison support remains questionable, offering little in terms of preparing prisoners to overcome the barriers of employment they face upon release. Inadequate vocational training in prison, then, constitutes one of many ways the prison contributes to extended cycles of marginalization and incarceration (Maguire, p. 134). Prison life is informed by the importation of street-based masculinities into prison. Reflecting on how street living prepared participants for serving time, Maguire examines through his various participant experiences how men transitioned from youth to adulthood; acquiring the status of “full con” between the ages of 18 and 21.
In Chapter 8, Maguire says that as much as they try to deny their surroundings, the respondents have to face the daily and emasculating reality of what it means to be vulnerable. In prison, the vulnerabilities may lead men to adopt strategies such as “blending in” as an attempt to circumvent the degree of their vulnerabilities. Maguire exposes how respondents’ gendered identities were created through aggression and displays of violence that were reinforced throughout their lives, including by male family members (e.g., fathers and brothers), and early street and local affiliations. His participants engaged in aggressive behaviours to manage their vulnerabilities, a strategic presentation, even performance, of masculinities (see Ricciardelli et al., 2015). As the younger males grew, crimes were contextualized as a means to provide for kids and to “be a man”; inadvertently keeping the multigenerational cycle into criminality strong (including the impact of absent fathers). Even in the reckoning of being ‘locked up’ in prison, respondents noted they feared not being home to teach their sons “how to be a man.” Their absence as fathers was readily noted as being “the greatest cost of their imprisonment” (p. 190).
Further, Maguire unpacks his participants’ struggles to identify a role model throughout their lives, noting those who did identified their fathers. Repeatedly, underpinning their respect for their fathers as role models was the notion that a man must be able to protect and provide. For his participants’, their imagined law-abiding futures rested on becoming “the breadwinner” – for most a status that was largely unattainable without criminalized activities in the past. The revolving-door cycle of imprisonment, moreover, makes attaining a role as provider and protector more difficult. However, it always remains that, as Maguire writes in Chapter 9, “on the basis of almost every respondent interview, the indisputable evidence is that these men’s journeys to imprisonment started on the streets of their impoverished neighbourhoods – many years before they reached the prison gates” (p. 193).
Overall, Maguire contributes to our knowledge of how masculinities, informed by class and protest masculinities, affect criminal involvement. He emphasizes the interconnectedness of factors that affect boys and men, how these factors are multifaceted, thereby revealing social and cultural elements of masculinities that lead to repetitive criminality among them. His work contributes to an understanding of the various factors (i.e. home, neighbourhood, school) that may affect emergent criminal activity among young men, leading to revolving door imprisonment. Conceptually, Maguire’s Male, Failed and Jailed makes an important contribution to our understanding of the connection between environment, performance masculinities, and identity for men.
