Jamie Bennett

Jamie Bennett is a Researcher affiliated with the Centre for Criminology and currently serves as Group Director for Contracted Prisons in HM Prison & Probation Service. He has held significant roles such as Deputy Director for Security, Order, and Counter Terrorism, Chief Operating Officer at the Youth Justice Board, and Governor of multiple specialized prisons including HMP Long Lartin (high security), HMP Grendon (therapeutic communities), HMP Springhill (rehabilitation and resettlement), and HMP Morton Hall (women’s prison with an international population).

His research focuses on prison management, media representation of prisons, therapeutic communities, and prison security. He has authored and edited several books on penal systems, including The Working Lives of Prison Managers (2015) and Managing Prisons: Managerialism, Austerity and Moral Blindness (2024), and contributed to over 100 articles and reviews.

Currently, he is a trustee of Bromley Trust and serves on the editorial boards of the Prison Service Journal and Incarceration. His work intersects with broader themes of social inequality, prison-based therapy, and managerialism in late-modern prison systems.