Musical life stories coherence through musicking in the prison setting

Despite the strong relationships evidenced between music and identity little research exists into the significance of music in prisoners’ shifting sense of identity. This article explores musicking as part of the ongoing identity work of prisoners in light of theory on musical performance, narrative and desistance and discusses implications for penal practice and research. Through the presentation of an ethnographic study of music therapy in a low security Norwegian prison we show how participation in music activities afforded congruence between the past, the present and the projected future for participants by way of their unfolding musical life stories. Complementing existing conceptualisations of music as an agent for change, our study suggests that musicking afforded the maintenance of a coherent sense of self for participating prison inmates, whilst offering opportunities for noncoercive personal development. We argue that research into musicking in prison offers fruitful ways of tracing how the complexities inherent in processes of change are enacted in everyday prison life, and that it can advance our knowledge of relationships between culture, penal practice and desistance.

Navigating post-prison life. Social positioning and agency in unstable circumstances

People that are released from prison experience 'life outside' as unpredictable and insecure. They are faced with stigmatization, poverty and feelings of alienation from the 'world outside.' Based on ethnographic research in the field of post-prison life, this paper asks how formerly incarcerated men act and position themselves within and around uncertain circumstances that characterize post-prison life. The paper introduces the concept of 'social navigation' as an epistemological tool for approaching post-prison life ethnographically. In doing so, it shows the potential of the concept of social navigation in understanding actor's social positioning and agency within unstable sociocultural landscapes and within a disrupted sociocultural order.

Sentenced for the season: Jamaican migrant farmworkers on Okanagan orchards

Despite perfunctory characterisation of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) as a ‘triple win’, scholars and activists have long admonished its lack of government oversight, disrespect for migrant rights and indentureship of foreign workers. This article contends that the SAWP is predicated upon naturalised, deeply engrained and degrading beliefs that devalue Black lives and labour. Based on twenty months’ ethnographic fieldwork in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, it reveals the extent to which anti-Black racism permeates, organises and frustrates workers’ lives on farms and in local communities. It situates such experiences, which workers characterise as ‘prison life’, in the context of anti-Black immigration policy and the workings of racial capitalism. This ethnography of Caribbean migrants not only adds perspective to scholarship hitherto focused on the experiences of Latino workers, but it also reinforces critical work on anti-Black racism in contemporary Canada.

All smoke and mirrors? The Taylor litigation and issues surrounding the smoking ban in New Zealand prisons

<p>A 2005 prisoner health survey found that almost three quarters of the New Zealand prison population identified as smokers. Tobacco was deeply engrained in prison culture and smoking was viewed as an aid for managing the stress and boredom associated with prison life. The Department of Corrections implemented a policy on 1 July 2011, banning smoking in all areas of all prisons in New Zealand. The policy aimed to improve the long-term health of prisoners, and create a healthier workplace environment. Arthur Taylor, a notorious and litigious criminal, successfully challenged the delegated legislation implementing the policy by way of judicial review. This paper argues that the judicial reasoning was flawed, as it was based on erroneous assumptions without a thorough assessment and interpretation of the legislative history. Despite Taylor’s successful claims, the smoking ban was then incorporated into primary legislation. This paper examines the method of implementation, finding issues with retrospective and privative clauses introduced by a late stage supplementary order paper. Prisoners are a group especially vulnerable to curtailment of rights and freedoms, and this paper concludes that removal of the freedom to smoke in prison cells and outside in prison yards was a step too far.</p>

All smoke and mirrors? The Taylor litigation and issues surrounding the smoking ban in New Zealand prisons

<p>A 2005 prisoner health survey found that almost three quarters of the New Zealand prison population identified as smokers. Tobacco was deeply engrained in prison culture and smoking was viewed as an aid for managing the stress and boredom associated with prison life. The Department of Corrections implemented a policy on 1 July 2011, banning smoking in all areas of all prisons in New Zealand. The policy aimed to improve the long-term health of prisoners, and create a healthier workplace environment. Arthur Taylor, a notorious and litigious criminal, successfully challenged the delegated legislation implementing the policy by way of judicial review. This paper argues that the judicial reasoning was flawed, as it was based on erroneous assumptions without a thorough assessment and interpretation of the legislative history. Despite Taylor’s successful claims, the smoking ban was then incorporated into primary legislation. This paper examines the method of implementation, finding issues with retrospective and privative clauses introduced by a late stage supplementary order paper. Prisoners are a group especially vulnerable to curtailment of rights and freedoms, and this paper concludes that removal of the freedom to smoke in prison cells and outside in prison yards was a step too far.</p>

Property of Corrections: The Experience of Incarceration for Female Inmates in a New Zealand Prison

<p>This thesis examines what it means to be an inmate as experienced by female inmates serving sentences at Christchurch Women’s Prison. Using an auto-ethnographic methodology, combined with a mixed-methods approach, 82 female inmates completed a questionnaire and 10 were interviewed via semi-structured conversations. The data from the questionnaire are presented and analysed within the context of research from overseas studies. The conversations are further analysed and complemented by my own insider knowledge of prison life. This study was undertaken when I was a serving inmate and I made the decision to situate myself in this body of research. Excerpts from my prison journal entries, consisting of shared personal reflections from my years of imprisonment, are interspersed throughout the thesis. Three primary motivations drove this research. The first was to discover and interrogate what it means to be a prisoner from the prisoner’s perspective. The second was to explore how the prison experience relates to the possibility of future successful reintegration and, finally, I wanted to give women inmates a platform to share their stories in the hope that it would empower them. It achieves all three. The stories that the women shared, and their understandings of lived prison life, illustrate the ineffectiveness of incarceration and its inability to serve as a foundation for successful future reintegration. The findings provide a preliminary platform for further studies in this area and contribute to the extant academic understanding of an often misunderstood population.</p>

Property of Corrections: The Experience of Incarceration for Female Inmates in a New Zealand Prison

<p>This thesis examines what it means to be an inmate as experienced by female inmates serving sentences at Christchurch Women’s Prison. Using an auto-ethnographic methodology, combined with a mixed-methods approach, 82 female inmates completed a questionnaire and 10 were interviewed via semi-structured conversations. The data from the questionnaire are presented and analysed within the context of research from overseas studies. The conversations are further analysed and complemented by my own insider knowledge of prison life. This study was undertaken when I was a serving inmate and I made the decision to situate myself in this body of research. Excerpts from my prison journal entries, consisting of shared personal reflections from my years of imprisonment, are interspersed throughout the thesis. Three primary motivations drove this research. The first was to discover and interrogate what it means to be a prisoner from the prisoner’s perspective. The second was to explore how the prison experience relates to the possibility of future successful reintegration and, finally, I wanted to give women inmates a platform to share their stories in the hope that it would empower them. It achieves all three. The stories that the women shared, and their understandings of lived prison life, illustrate the ineffectiveness of incarceration and its inability to serve as a foundation for successful future reintegration. The findings provide a preliminary platform for further studies in this area and contribute to the extant academic understanding of an often misunderstood population.</p>

Changing Prisons to Help People Change

It is important to consider the conditions of prison life in understanding how individuals rejoin society at the conclusion of their sentence. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based approach that promotes new ways of thinking and behaving for both incarcerated persons and correctional staff that will better prepare returning citizens to be valuable community members. We consider that “since criminal behavior is driven partly by certain thinking patterns that predispose individuals to commit crimes or engage in illegal activities, the widespread implementation of CBT [and immersive cognitive communities] as part of correctional programming could lead to fewer re-arrests and lower likelihood of reincarceration.” This article includes short, intermediate, and long-term policy and practice recommendations to begin implementing this model, beginning with funding to support the implementation of Cognitive Communities, re-branding prisons to focus on rehabilitation, and finally making the reduction of prison-sentencing through shorter prison terms and more reliance on community sanctions a long-term policy goal in the U.S.

Prisons and Prison life in Princely State: A Historical Study of Cooch Behar

The present paper deals with the issue of prisons and their life in the Princely State of Cooch Behar. Cooch Behar was princely state during colonial period in India. With the advent of colonial power in India; the princely state had indirect relations with British power. Due to the contact with colonial power, the indigenous native rule in India became modified and codification of law and orders, regulations were introduced in the line of British pattern. The primitive systems of jails and prisons confinement were revised accordance with the new light of reformation, and in India especially in the princely rule modified. However, in this content the main aim is to find out the condition of the prisoners in the jails and police custody under the rule of Princely State.