Samenvatting

This essay examines imprisoned felons’ perspectives and interpretations of ‘doing life’. Prisoners’ and ex-prisoners’ perspectives on the pros and cons of life imprisonment were documented over four decades of ethnographic research in prisons and on urban streets. The author’s research was conducted as a participant observer of street criminals and observing participant in federal prisons. Interviews with violent convicted felons in state and federal prisons and persistent criminals with histories of imprisonment reveal what it means to ‘do time’. Prisoners’ enculturation accommodates their adjustment to prison life and ability to negotiate daily prison life, but prison culture’s and prison programs’ inability to alter the nature of violent criminals pose a continuous threat to the population at large. Life imprisonment benefits prisoners’ physical and social health and protects communities by keeping violent criminals imprisoned.