Drawing on qualitative interviews with 51 incarcerated adult men and nine correctional officers in a Western Canadian prison system, we ask why some incarcerated people find it appealing to be placed on correctional boot camp units and what such appeals tell us about broader conditions of incarceration. Participants on three boot camp units drew on narratives relating to (a) extrinsic benefits, (b) discipline and structure, (c) teamwork and positive relationships, and (d) an opportunity for self-improvement to construct symbolic boundaries between "normal" units and boot camps, as well as their former self and their transformed current self. By drawing symbolic boundaries between the past and present and between other units and their boot camp unit, our participants create narratives that allow them to partially mitigate some pains of imprisonment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the last two decades, a body of critical scholarship has emerged accentuating the social and cultural importance of food in prison. This article employs a tripartite conceptual framework for contemplating and demarcating food's different valuations in prison. We draw from our interviews with over 500 incarcerated individuals to demonstrate how acquiring, trading, and preparing food is inscribed with use, exchange, and sign values.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPunishm Soc
January 2023
Research on incarcerated fathers tends to accentuate the harmful familial consequences of parental incarceration and discuss how having children might prompt incarcerated fathers to desist from crime. Less attention has focused on how narratives of fatherhood shape the day-to-day dynamics of incarceration. Drawing on 93 qualitative interviews with incarcerated fathers in Western Canada, we focus specifically on our participants' parenting narratives.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoc Sci Med
February 2021
First responders-including police officers-play a prominent role in managing the risk of fentanyl overdoses. In many jurisdictions, they have Naloxone (also commercially available as Narcan) at their disposal to counter the effects of an opioid overdose. Little empirical research exists on how effectively police are incorporating this emergency rescue medication into routine practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Drug Policy
September 2019
Background And Aims: Fentanyl and derivatives are lethal components of North America's opioid crisis. Prisons often house a disproportionate number of illicit opiate users. To date, no on-the-ground empirical research exists on how opioids are altering the health and risk profile of prisons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSecurity for the Olympic Games has become undeniably visible in recent years. A certain degree of this visibility became unavoidable after the 1972 Munich Olympics when military personnel and hardware became standard elements of Olympic security. Yet, this visibility is qualitatively different today in that it is often deliberately fashioned for public consumption.
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