‘Come on mate, let's make you a cup of tea’: Theorising materiality and its impacts on detainee dignity inside police detention

In this article, we examine detainee experiences of dignity in police detention through the lens materiality. To do this, draw on sociological and anthropological literature ‘material turn’ its application to criminal justice settings, a mixed-methods study custody England Wales. First, conceptualise different dimensions materiality custody. Second, show how some forms materiality, conjunction with staff–detainee relationships, shape rooted equal worth, privacy autonomy. Third, intertwining social material opens up new possibilities for theorising work. The work is active, not just symbolic. Alongside relations, it shapes citizen police, including ‘hard’ ‘soft’ policing, by implication, pain injustice. Materiality therefore provides further way production order inside outside detention.