Challenging the penal present: developing and representing a critical history of the prison

This paper will provide a work in progress report on a project to research and present to the public a critical history of the former HMP Canterbury. The site of this institution was purchased by Canterbury Christ Church University in 2014 and is currently undergoing redevelopment to create teaching spaces, as well as a public gallery and heritage centre. The prison has a 200 year history during which it functioned as a county house of correction, a local prison and a category C training prison. Its final role prior to closure in 2013 was as an institution for foreign national prisoners. As such it represents a valuable opportunity to examine the continuing use of the prison throughout the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, thus offering the chance to explore the presence of continuity and change within this history.

The paper explores the role of narratives as a way of developing critical representations of imprisonment which encourage the public to reflect on the problematic nature of imprisonment in both former and contemporary contexts. It also considers some of the challenges associated with this task when the recent past is the subject of representations.