Associate Professor in Political Science, Brown University​

Talk at the London School of Economics on "Order without Law?"

Many people think prisons are all the same—rows of cells filled with violent men who officials rule with an iron fist. Yet, life behind bars varies in incredible ways. In some facilities, prison officials govern with care and attention to prisoners’ needs. In others, officials have remarkably little influence on the everyday life of prisoners, sometimes not even providing necessities like food and clean water. In The Puzzle of Prison Order, David Skarbek develops a theory of why life in prison varies so much. He investigates life in a wide array of prisons—in Brazil, Bolivia, Norway, a prisoner of war camp, England and Wales, women’s prisons in California, and a gay and transgender housing unit in the Los Angeles County Jail—to understand the hierarchy of life on the inside. Drawing on economics and a vast empirical literature on legal systems, Skarbek offers a framework to understand why life on the inside varies in such fascinating and novel ways, and also how social order evolves and takes root behind bars.

Available summer 2020. Pre-order on Amazon

Visiting Scholar, Center for the STudy of Law & Society, Berkeley Law (19-20)

David Skarbek

Discussed on the Unregistered podcast