In November 2024, Dr Cormac Behan (Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology) and Dr Matt Maycock (Monash University School of Social Sciences) published a new paper in the British Journal of Criminology. The article, ‘Power to the Convicted Class’: Re-assessing prisoner-led movements and trade union organising examined prisoner-led movements that have sought the right to representation, and improvements in pay and conditions. It argued that this strand of prison organising has tended to be subsumed into narratives around prison disturbances, studies of movements for prisoners’ rights, and campaigns for penal reform. The article considered the extent to which prisoner-led organisations have adapted to their unique set of circumstances by examining some historical and contemporary examples of labour organising in prison. It contended that questions of class and class analysis more widely in relation to prisoner labour have not been explicitly analysed within contemporary penology, and considered the need for a new approach to critique worker organising within prison settings. The article is available here .