The profile of prisoners across many Western countries is strikingly similar - 95% male, predominantly undereducated and underemployed, from the most deprived neighbourhoods. This book reflects on how similarly positioned men configure masculinities against global economic shifts that have seen the decimation of traditional, manual-heavy industry and with it the disruption of long-established relations of labour. Drawing on life history interviews and classical ethnography, the book charts a group of men's experiences pre, during and post prison. Tracking the development of masculinities from childhood to adulthood, across impoverished streets, 'failing' schools and inadequate state 'care', the book questions whether this proved better preparation for serving prison time than working in their local, service-dominated, labour markets. It integrates theories of crime, geography, economics and masculinity to take into account structural and global economic shifts as well as individual long-term perspectives in order to provide a broad examination on pathways to prison and post prison.

Chapter 1. Introduction: Failing Masculinities

 Chapter 2. Theorising Marginalisied Masculinities
Chapter 3
Economic Change: Post Industrial Masculinities
Chapter 4
Background and Methods: Epistemological Privilege?
Chapter 5. Local Lads: Pathways to Prison
Chapter 6. (Non)Working Lives
Chapter 7. Boys to "Cons": Adolescent to Adult Transitions in the Local Prison
Chapter 8. Vulnerable Masculinities: Absent Men and Imagined Futures
Chapter 9. Conclusion: Marginalised from the Margins.