Research Catalog

Title

Disruptive prisoners : resistance, reform, and the New Deal / Chris Clarkson and Melissa Munn ; foreword by Robert Gaucher.

Author

Clarkson, Christopher Allan, 1969-

Publication

• Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, [2021]
• ©2021

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Munn, Melissa,

Description

xiii, 306 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

"Disruptive Prisoners reconstitutes the history of Canada's federal prison system in the mid-twentieth century through a process of collective biography - one involving prisoners, administrators, prison reformers, and politicians. This social history relies on extensive archival research and access to government documents, but more importantly, uses the penal press materials created by prisoners themselves and an interview with one of the founding penal press editors to provide a unique and unprecedented analysis. Disruptive Prisoners is grounded in the lived experiences of men who were incarcerated in federal penitentiaries in Canada and argues that they were not merely passive recipients of intervention. Evidence indicates that prisoners were active agents of change who advocated for and resisted the initiatives that were part of Canada's "New Deal in Corrections." While prisoners are silent in other criminological and historical texts, here they are central figures: the juxtaposition of their voices with the official administrative, parliamentary, and government records challenges the dominant tropes of progress and provides a more nuanced and complicated reframing of the post-Archambault Commission era. The use of an alternative evidential base, the commitment of the authors to integrating subaltern perspectives, and the first-hand accounts by prisoners of their experiences of incarceration makes this book a highly readable and engaging glimpse behind the bars of Canada's federal prisons."--

Subject

• Prison reform > Canada > History > 20th century
• Prisoners > Canada > History > 20th century
• Prisons > Canada > History > 20th century

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 285-294) and index.

Additional Formats (note)

• Issued also in electronic formats.

ISBN

• 9781487508531
• 9781487525910
• 1487508530
• 1487525915

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library