Representation and Regulation: A Critical Analysis of the Woman in Jail

Abstract Women make up approximately 11% of the total number of incarcerated adults in provincial jails across Canada. While overall crime rates are declining, incarceration rates, particularly at the provincial level, and for women, are growing. Examination of the literature on the experiences of incarcerated women shows complex histories that include physical and sexual violence, poverty, mental health concerns or disabilities and often addictions. The purpose of this study is to understand the complexity of women’s experience and how it is related to the ways in which policies and practices to manage crime emerge within dominant political ideologies. Using institutional ethnography, in-depth interviews and analysis of authorizing and interfacing texts inside the women’s unit of a provincial prison in Alberta, Canada, I examine power and decision making. The following questions guided this study: how specifically do dominant ideologies manifest within the prison experience? Does sustaining a prison system meant to punish and rehabilitate offenders at the same time reduce future crime? How do dominant ideologies construct women offenders? And how do prison processes and decisions rooted in these ideologies impact the women offenders’ experiences in prison? My interdisciplinary approach, using a gendered-disability lens seeks to understand how the ‘woman in jail’ is constructed within the dominant economic philosophy of neoliberalism, as well, how these constructions lead to a particular representation and corresponding regulation of her. The critical analysis reveals that current practices of incarcerating women with histories of trauma has deleterious effects. An alternative approach is theorized

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Interdisciplinary Graduate Program

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Graduate Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Milaney, Katrina

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Hughson, E. Anne

• Gender Studies

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/27633

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:11023/1244