Displacing Criminal Bodies: Spectacle, Crime and Punishment in the TV Sitcom The Visit

This paper explores the transition from ‘visible’ to ‘invisible’ modes of penal punishment via the shifting spectacle of a heavily disciplined, corporeal incarceration. It is broadly acknowledged that the emergence of prisons in Britain marked the disappearance of punishment from the public eye. This paper argues that despite this physical distancing, concerns over crime and punishment were displaced and translated into other realms of society. This displacement has continued with the emergence of global media sources, which deploy landscapes of incarceration as entertainment. In order to ground this discussion, this paper focuses upon the manner in which television media allows for a representation of British prisons by drawing upon the recent bbc sitcom The Visit. By examining the implications of events within the programme, discussion reveals a careful negotiation of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ identities and behaviours that, together, render prisons an essential, visible, if particular and distinct, part of society as a whole