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Drawing inspiration from C Wright Mills exhortation to sociologists to locate themselves and their experiences in the ‘trends of their epoch’, I consider how first-hand experience of imprisonment can help criminology account for the growing trend towards the use of imprisonment in many Western democracies. Using interviews with a small group of British criminologists who have experience of imprisonment, I explore the connections between personal stories and collective narratives. Drawing reflexively from my own imprisonment, my subsequent professional trajectory and experiences of prison research, I consider the difficulties and potential of crafting a collective criminological project from disparate and profoundly personal experiences of imprisonment. The chapter combines methodological reflections on the use of autoethnography, autobiography and vignettes as a means to an end: establishing collective narratives from personal stories. I argue that the task of connecting these narratives to the ‘trends of the epoch’ that manifest in expanding prison populations is difficult but developing some momentum in convict criminology.

Australia is one of the Anglophone countries that readily adapted to a public management approach. Reforms since the 1980s have shown remarkable breadth, longevity and significance. The reforms acknowledge failure of existing approaches and the need to address management deficiencies, fiscal stress and increased complexity. This chapter discusses four cases, reflecting leadership from core agencies as well as executives. Financial management reform was initially led by Finance, and then a broader agenda was pursued through a senior management committee under the Department of the Prime. However, devolution of responsibilities from central agencies did not appear to make managers more accountable. Finance was weakened by devolution and unable to exercise appropriate leadership, and agencies did not integrate performance management reform with internal planning processes. By contrast, a one-stop shopping service for welfare was successful, although later folded in the Department of Human Services. DPMC also launched reform process in the 2010s, although not a priority of the prime minister, some recommendations, such as leadership development and talent management, were implemented that increased public service capacity. The case of Australia shows that in spite of variable political support and leadership by central agencies, a relatively stable environment (governments serving multiple terms) allowed implementation to proceed in the mid-term, including incentives to ensure responsiveness at department levels.

Since 1980s, institutional child sexual abuse has been ‘discovered’ as an internationally recognisable social problem. Public inquiries have become the most dominant mode of response to this, having been enacted throughout much of the western world. Driven by demands from victims/survivors for collective recognition, these have drawn on features of transitional justice as an important means of truth telling. While the role of survivors in precipitating the enactment of public inquiries has been well documented, less well understood is how social activism has been influenced in the aftermath of such inquiries. In this chapter, the authors explore a local phenomenon known as Loud Fence that arose in the Australian town of Ballarat as a case study to consider the relationship between activism and social change that can occur in the wake of official truth telling.