"Failing from a cliff-face" into the necropolitical abyss: experiences of those with sexual convictions leaving prison

We reconceptualise the experience of people with sexual convictions leaving prison as being in but not of the community. Release from prison can be characterised as falling into a necropolitical abyss, which entails extreme social exclusion. Via our interview data we extend current understanding on this transition as we newly theorise the severity of the cliff face drop, the post prison precarity and the death world experience. Escape from the death world is attempted through performance visa what we see as a life mask. Embracing the work of Agamben, Butler, Mbembe, and Goffman we explore this and substitute stigmatised identity performance. We evaluate ontological (in)security for persons with sexual convictions. Novelty lies in the form of positivity ascribed to imprisonment as although prison is recognised as a terrible place, it nonetheless does facilitate security and a social life.