Academic Publications

Book

Vannier, M & Harriott, P. (2025), Prisoner Leaders: Leadership as Experience and Institution. Palgrave. 

This edited collection sheds light on an under-researched and often misconceived form of prison life, that of prisoner leadership. It offers a fresh approach to understanding the reality of the prison community, seeking out examples of prisoner leaders and their leadership qualities, uncovering new understandings of how such leadership supports and changes the community as well as shedding light on the conditions under which such leadership thrives. It explores a wealth of topics from race to drugs, violence, work, and faith. Each chapter is co-authored by an academic and a contributor with prison lived experience to centralise their knowledge and narratives on different leadership topics. It addresses key assumptions about the meaning and categorisation of what counts as ‘a leader’, why they matter, and what role they play in the implementation and mediation of punishment. This book enriches academic knowledge and provides a crucial intellectual stimulus for rethinking the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of prison research.

Listed as top 10 reads by the Carceral Geography network (August 2025)

Peer Reviewed Articles

Vannier, M., Gair, H., Qualitative Research Journal (under review) ‘Hope on Paper - Ageing, Life Imprisonment, and the Reflective Power of Prisoner Diaries’.

Vannier, M., Gair, H., Lopez, M., Talford, H., The Left Behind, The Prison Service Journal (in press) (2026)

Vannier, M. Old age, risk and vulnerability: a humanitarian punitive complex, Punishment & Society, (2025).

Vannier, M. The Conversation May 20, 2025 Incarcérer des prisonniers dans la jungle de Guyane : le choix d’une brutalité pénale ostentatoire

Vannier, M. The Conversation April 13, 2025 La semi-liberté, solution pour désengorger les prisons et réinsérer les détenus ?

Vannier, M. ‘Beware of the siren’s call: The European Right to Hope and the Challenge of Old age behind bars, The Human Rights Law Review (2025)

Vannier, M. On the importance of ‘hope in practice’ behind bars, The February Journal, special issue (2025)

Dagan, N. and Vannier, M. ‘Managing the Risk of Living: Life imprisonment, the Medical Gaze and the Construction of the Paroled Body’, The British Journal of Criminology (2024)

Vannier, M. and Dagan, N. ‘Terminal Liminality’, The British Journal of Criminology (2024)

Vannier, M. ‘Constructing the Intolerable: on the value of documenting the pains of Imprisonment,’ Theoretical Criminology (2024)

Vannier, M. and Nellis, A., ‘Time's relentless melt: The Severity of life imprisonment through the prism of old age’, (2023) Punishment & Society.

Book Chapters

Vannier, M. The future of parole in France, ‘How Old age Defies Parole’s Temporality’, in Routledge Edited Collection, Onati (2025)