This chapter describes the results of the first national public opinion poll of US citizens asking them if they support MAID practices in carceral settings. While the majority (54%) supported MAID for terminally ill patients outside of a prison, 49% supported MAID for terminally ill prisoners.

This chapter explains how the “pains of imprisonment” influence the mental health of prisoners and may contribute to their decision to commit suicide. Mortality statistics are presented to inform readers of the causes of death in correctional facilities, and a survival analysis shows the timing of death for long-term prisoners.

Realizing they were making no headway with legal measures or the media campaign, Rudnik and Moiseenko decided to go on hunger strike just as their trial was about to begin in July 1932. They attended the first two days of the trial but refused to answer any questions, and then on the third day were too sick to attend. The court paused the trial, but flatly refused to release the prisoners. Behind the scenes, the mayor of Shanghai tried to shut down Harold Isaacs’ China Forum which was openly criticizing the Guomindang, and the Soviet military spy Richard Sorge brokered a $20,000 bribe to release Rudnik and Moiseenko. Although the bribe did not end in their release, Soong Ching-ling coordinated efforts that persauded the couple to end their hunger strike after two weeks.

The hunger strike, however, only paused the trial: it resumed as soon as Rudnik and Moiseenko were healthy again. As in the first phase of the trial, the couple was hostile to the court and refused to answer questions. They yelled, interrupted, and objected to the evidence brought against them, but in the end the court unanimously recommended conviction and sentenced them both to life in prison.

Finally convicted after more than a year of imprisonment, Rudnik and Moiseenko shocked the public by deciding not to appeal their sentences. At this point they began to think seriously about how they might arrange long-term care for their four-year old son, who remained in Shanghai with a German foster family. This, however, proved difficult, because the individuals they asked to raise him – including Jean Vincent and Agnes Smedley – were not interested in doing so. At the same time, Rudnik and Moiseenko were extremely unhappy in the new prison where they had been transferred.

This chapter explores Ngugi wa Thiong’ o’s literary responses to detention and exile, focusing on the Devil on the Cross (1982) and Wrestling with the Devil (2018). Ngugi articulates his experiences of dislocation and ideological resistance, denouncing oppression and oppressors in explicit ways. The chapter argues that Ngugi’s adoption of allegorical aesthetics and memoir forms is a direct response to the dislocating effects of detention and exile. Physical confinement and psychological anguish often lead writers to adopt pre-set aesthetics and rigid literary forms. Despite the formulaic nature of allegory and the memoir, Ngugi subverts them to articulate a specific ideological vision for a transformed Kenyan society. The memoir and the allegorical novel testify to intellectual resistance against his detractors, and his determination to create despite adversity. Devil on the Cross, conceived and written in prison, exemplifies the allegorical turn, inhabiting and defying his unjust incarceration. Ngugi’s experiences in detention and exile predict the writing he would produce during this period, blurring the lines between physical and psychological confinement. By exploring the intersection of politics, literature and personal experience, this chapter sheds light on Ngugi’s unique literary trajectory and the ways in which adversity can shape artistic expression.

A description is provided of the current situation in Aotearoa New Zealand with regard to compulsory treatment of people with schizophrenia. This is placed within the context of homelessness in New Zealand and the provision of services to the incarcerated mentally ill. There are high rates of homelessness and incarceration and services are struggling to meet their needs. This is particularly a problem for the indigenous population. The current Mental Health Act allows for compulsory treatment of people who as a result of schizophrenia are seriously impaired in their capacity to care for themselves, and this will include people where there is a nexus between homelessness and their illness. The Mental Health Act is being reformed, with a new act likely to emphasize autonomy and capacity to a greater degree. Finally, the author considers the learnings from 5 years working within the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre, which provides a unique perspective on these issues.

Scholars of Chinese history are well acquainted with the use of convict labor in constructing infrastructure, serving in armies, erecting monuments, and aiding in the establishment of settlements in newly acquired territories. This chapter explores the role of convict labor in local government. I argue that convict laborers were integrated as essential aides to officials. While they were exploited as both objects and instruments to sustain the political economy, convicts simultaneously occupied crucial roles in operating the governmental apparatus and administering the populace. The local administrative space functioned as an open prison. Despite the brutality inherent in the exploitation of convict labor, the unearthed administrative documents masked the grim reality, projecting a veneer of civilized order onto this group. Legal statutes and administrative records granted bureaucrats and scribe–functionaries the authority to control convicts; paradoxically, these same documents also subjected the bureaucrats and scribe–functionaries to scrutiny. Failure to meet expected job performance standards could result in criminalization, turning these officials into convicts themselves.

This chapter considers the work of major First Nations figures in Australian poetry – Oodgeroo, Kevin Gilbert, Mudrooroo and Lionel Fogarty – as well as poetry produced by current or former First Nations inmates of Australia’s prison system or about First Nations deaths in custody. The language of these poets is both politically activist and community enhancing. It argues that the effects of such poetry can be redemptive, empowering or visionary. It considers such poetry as testimony, discussing the ways in which First Nations writers have created a poetic language that might not have been available, which, in turn, creates a community of readers and listeners. For many First Nations prison inmates, poetry becomes a mean to ground Indigenous identity and reflect on their lives and relationships. From the 1990s, poets such as Samuel Wagan Watson, Romaine Moreton, Ali Cobby Eckermann and Yvette Holt have broken new ground with work highlighting Aboriginal selfhood in an evolving Australian society. The chapter concludes with a consideration of a younger and emergent generation of First Nations poets.

This chapter moves back to institutions to deal with the general decline in litigation over failed credit that began around 1690, and argues it came about largely because of changes in credit networks. It demonstrates how attorneys’ business moved away from litigation to conveyancing, and how they profited by becoming local credit. It also looks at the increasing use of local summary justice in the Courts of Requests in London, Bristol, and Newcastle to enforce the small debts of poor consumers, as well as the growing use of arrest and imprisonment in the common law courts. While the use of paper currency provided greater liquidity in credit markets, and reduced the overall level of litigation massively, those debtors who went broke began to be treated in a much harsher fashion.