Resisting and enabling domination: voluntary organizations’ efforts to regulate prison and police detention

Abstract Mobilizing a neo-republican account of domination, we explore voluntary organizations’ efforts to regulate prison and police detention. We find that regulatory functions ‘on the books’ are insufficient to counteract detainee domination ‘in action’, as power is neither reliably controlled by common knowledge and effective rules, nor under sufficient control by persons and groups subject to those rules. Using a large, original qualitative dataset, we present four antipowers through which voluntary organizations seek to regulate domination in detention: (1) providing information and advice to detainees; (2) holding rule makers to account on behalf of detainees; (3) campaigning for different rules; (4) establishing democratic participation by prisoners. Simultaneously, we illustrate how voluntary organizations may contribute to domination and be subject to dominating practices from authorities.