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286
The Prison Journal
Volume 89 Number 3
September 2009 286-308
© 2009 SAGE Publications
10.1177/0032885509339506
http://tpj.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Looking Back 10 Years
After the Arbour Inquiry
Ideology, Policy, Practice, and
the Federal Female Prisoner
Colleen Anne Dell
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
Catherine J. Fillmore
University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Jennifer M. Kilty
University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
The decade of the 1990s can be marked as one of major dissension, conflict,
and change within federal corrections for women in Canada. In this article, the
authors reflect back on this period of time by examining the correctional ide-
ologies, policies, and practices that were operating in the Canadian federal
prison for women. Finding these policies and practices to be inherently gen-
dered and punitive in nature, it is argued that punishment was at the time and
continues to be the cornerstone of the regulation of women prisoners, and that
it takes a specific, gendered form that relies on the deployment of traditional
patriarchal conceptions of femininity. Drawing on interviews with correc-
tional personnel and analyses of correctional policies and the Arbour Inquiry
transcripts, this article reconstructs Correctional Service of Canada’s (CSC)
responses to incarcerated women’s “unfeminine” behavior, specifically wom-
en’s self-harming behavior and their violence against others, as overly disci-
plinary. It is proposed that CSC’s ideological foundation, as well as the
practices and policies that were operating both at the time of and following the
incident at the Kingston Prison for Women that resulted in the Arbour Inquiry,
remain deeply entrenched in an oppressive hierarchical structure of gender
inequality. This structure fails to question how traditional conceptions of
femininity shape policies and practices. It has also aided in the construction of
a new genre of “misbehaved” women in corrections, which in turn has been
used to justify the harsh regulatory treatment of federally sentenced women.
Authors’ Note: Please address correspondence to Colleen Anne Dell, Department of
Sociology and School of Public Health, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, 1015
Arts Building, Saskatoon, Canada SK S7N 5A5; e-mail: cikkeeb@usask.ca.
Article
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Without challenging its traditional gender ideologies, CSC is unable to offer
any alternatives to its punitive practices, which continue to operate.
Keywords: women; prison; regulation; violence
Since the beginning of the 1990s, there has been an increased focus on
women who violate traditional gender role behavioral expectations in
Canada, especially with respect to women as perpetrators of violence. The
growing attention to women’s violence can be attributed in part to the 1993
Karla Homolka1 and 1995 Paul Bernardo trials. Since that time, there have
been several popular and sensational accounts of women’s violence, such
as Patricia Pearson’s (1997) publicly favored book, When She Was Bad:
Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence. Despite the fact that women are
most commonly charged with property crimes such as theft and fraud, the
media has sensationalized and distorted the extent of women’s violence. In
fact, as public awareness and fear of “violent women” increased during the
first half of the decade, the rate of female adult and youth violent offences
(police-reported and court-processed) actually decreased (Dell & Boe,
1998). Between 1996 and 2000, there was an increase in the charge rate
for simple assault type of violent offences for women (Balfour & Comack,
2006) and girls (Bell, 2002). It should be noted, however, that official
crime statistics are influenced by a number of external factors, such as
zero-tolerance policies, changes in police charging practices, and greater
public intolerance toward violent crimes (Balfour & Comack, 2006; Bell,
2002, p. 136). Overall, the majority of women’s crimes are property related
and represent only a small percentage of violent crimes. The focus on
women’s violent behavior persists, however, despite the reality of the
extent and nature of their lawbreaking. This is an area of inquiry that
requires further investigation.
This article analyzes the responses of the Correctional Service of
Canada (CSC) to federally sentenced women who violate the traditional
gender role expectations of femininity by exploring the ways that CSC
characterizes women’s gender identity. It is proposed that two overarching
constructions of womanhood prevail within CSC discourse: (a) the tradi-
tional passive or compliant definition of womanhood and femininity and
(b) the unfeminine defiant or “misbehaved” woman. Both definitions disa-
vow power to women. The former definition achieves this through accept-
ance of the powerless patriarchal conception of what it means to be female
and the enactment of women’s “proper” role, whereas the latter achieves
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288 The Prison Journal
this through the condemnation and punishment of unfeminine, “misbe-
haved” women. As an institution within a patriarchal capitalist society,
CSC upholds a traditional view of femininity. Drawing on the findings of
our research and using a feminist approach, we argue that CSC constructed
a dichotomous image of federally sentenced women prisoners. In so doing,
two distinct constructions of women emerged: (a) the unfeminine misbe-
haved woman prisoner and (b) the traditional passive construction of
womanhood and femininity. Although seemingly polar opposites, both
these constructions act as forms of ideological control used to maintain the
historic gender hierarchy in federal corrections for women in Canada. To
develop this argument, we will examine CSC’s operating practices and
policies regarding two traditionally unfeminine types of conduct—inten-
tional violence against oneself (referred to in this article as self-harm) and
violence against others.
Literature Review: Correctional Service of Canada
(CSC), Women Prisoners, and Ideological Control
The practice of correctional punishment takes a specific gendered form
that relies on the deployment of traditional ideals of passive, feminine
behavior; punishment in this form is the cornerstone of the regulation of
female prisoners. In their own way, each of the four ideological tenets that
characterize the history of the Canadian correctional system (deterrence,
incapacitation, rehabilitation, and reintegration) is entrenched in the current
ideological foundation of CSC and support a gendered form of punishment.
Throughout the 1990s and at the turn of the 21st century, reintegration was
championed as the ideological foundation of CSC, its main emphasis being
on community protection (and thus selective incapacitation) and incarcera-
tion for punishment/deterrence rather than rehabilitation (Hannah-Moffat,
2005). The continued focus on reintegration has had the untoward effect
of hybridizing women’s risk and need, which has led to the reconstruction
of women’s needs as possible risk factors to positive social reintegration
(Hannah-Moffat, 2005).
CSC’s ideological focus continues to be generated from a male prisoner
normative standard. Illustrations of the persistence of this male standard
date back to the incarceration of women in male prisons in the late 1800s
to the current application of male-based actuarial assessment tools on
women prisoners. Historically, when women have been given special atten-
tion, two ideologies have surfaced: (a) the belief that the female prisoner
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needs to be reformed into a “proper” woman based on the patriarchal con-
ception of femininity and womanhood and (b) the belief that the normative
standard is male, against which women are compared. Both these ideolo-
gies espouse a subjugated identity for women. It is important to note that
the construction of this subjugated female identity also fails to recognize
the plurality of women’s identities, thereby essentializing women as one
homogenous group.
In the early 1990s, CSC’s recognition of the unique needs of federally
sentenced women appeared to be a progressive step (Goff, 1999). Illustrations
of this progress were the creation of the position of Deputy Commissioner for
Women in 1996, the construction of regional centers for federally sentenced
women,2 and CSC’s implementation of its structural reorganization through
community consultations (i.e., Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women).3
This progress, however, was short-lived. During the consultations, commu-
nity groups such as the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
(CAEFS)4 withdrew their support. CAEFS, publicly uneasy about the crea-
tion of more prisons,5 claimed that CSC continued to apply a male standard
to women and that their claimed adoption of a women-centered approach was
not being translated into practice (Hannah-Moffat, 2000; Shaw, 1995). In
response to these issues, Hannah-Moffat (1994) wrote,
[W]omen-centred corrections reproduces normative standards of femininity
and individualized constructions of deviance . . . Although the women-centred
model appears to be less intrusive and less punitive, it is not; these qualities
of incarceration are simply obscured by a feminized social control talk that
tends to deny the legal and material realities of imprisonment. (p. 160).
CSC’s claims of shifting to more progressive changes were further
questioned by feminists and prisoners rights activists with the opening of
the Edmonton Institution for Women (EIFW) in 1995. In response to cer-
tain isolated events that occurred in the early adjustment period of the
opening of the EIFW, such as slashings and a suicide, CSC imposed static
security measures—security fences, razor wire, and cameras in all of the
regional women’s prisons, including the Okimaw Ochi Healing Lodge
(Hannah-Moffat & Shaw 2000, p. 23). This response was disproportion-
ately harsh and punitive toward all women housed in the regional federal
institutions, and is in keeping with CSC’s response to the events that took
place at the Kingston Prison for Women (P4W) in 1994 that led to the
Arbour Inquiry.6 CSC’s continued belief that defiant or misbehaved
women require greater control is evidenced by the increasing security in
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290 The Prison Journal
the new institutions, the incarceration of maximum security women in
male institutions, the limiting of the newly constructed regional institu-
tions to only minimum and medium security prisoners, and the new man-
datory 2-year maximum security designation requirement for all federally
sentenced women.
Since the creation of the new regional facilities, there has been a harden-
ing of CSC’s approach to dealing with federally sentenced women. Most
notably, this approach has adopted “the develop[ment] [of] new managerial
techniques and rationales for the resistant prisoner” (Hannah-Moffat, 2000,
p. 526). Hannah-Moffat (2000) suggests that
Correction’s Canada’s redefinition of some prisoners as “difficult to manage”
and “unempowerable,” requires deployment of what Garland (1996: 46)
called a criminology of the other, “which represents criminals as dangerous
members of distinct racial and social groups that bear little resemblance to us
. . . The construction of this group of women as ‘disruptive,’ ‘risky,’ and
‘potential escapees’ is used to justify use of force, involuntary transfers,
searches, prolonged segregation in solitary confinement, and the transfer of
some women to segregated units in men’s maximum security penitentiaries.”
(pp. 526-527)
The misbehaved woman in prison is seen as a threat to the traditionally
established passive female identity. In fact, it is possible that in no other
Canadian institution is the oppression of women, which is secured through
an enforced adherence to a traditional passive characterization of woman-
hood and femininity, so evident.
A Feminist Theoretical Lens
Although there are many streams of feminist theory, for the purpose of
this article we are drawing on several established concepts, including
deconstructing patriarchy, capitalism, gender ideology, and traditional con-
structions of womanhood and femininity (Davis, Evans, & Lorber, 2006;
McCann & Kim, 2003; Tong, 1989). These concepts are the starting point
for examining the development and perpetuation of the traditional female
identity in Canadian corrections. The nature of patriarchy and the operation
of capitalist institutions serve as controlling forces in the lives of women.
From this perspective, production (capitalism) and reproduction (patriar-
chy) comprise the foundation of Western societies, uniformly facilitating
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female oppression and male domination (Comack, 1992). Capitalism and
patriarchy are therefore mutually reinforcing and work together to maintain
the current oppressive social structure. To understand the relations of pro-
duction and reproduction, one must examine them through an analysis of
power relations (Eisenstein, 1979, p. 21; Lacombe, 1984). One outcome of
patriarchal capitalism is the perpetuation of the subjugated female identity,
which in turn supports the punishment of misbehaved, unfeminine women.
This contributes to the oppression of Canadian women in general by creat-
ing a dichotomy of acceptable and nonacceptable behavior.
The patriarchal gender structure of CSC ensures that federally sentenced
women do not acquire a degree of power that will threaten the existing
institutional arrangements. A primary strategy to maintain the relations of
inequality has been the promotion of a subjugated female character struc-
ture that encourages women to be passive, compliant, weak, dependent,
and nonviolent (Benekos, 1995, p. 219; Steffensmeier & Allan, 1996,
p. 477). As a citizenry, we are inundated with this construction of women,
such as through advertising, the mass media, and pornography (Spears &
Seydegart, 1993; Wolf, 1991). Ultimately, the misbehaved female prisoner
is constructed as failing to adhere to traditional gender scripts; she thus
represents a resistant figure that challenges the entrenchment of the struc-
ture of patriarchy in correctional institutions. A woman who commits
violence is antithetical to the traditional female character structure,
although aggression or violence is an acceptable and even valued male
behavior.
Through an analysis of secondary data sources from a study on self-
harm in 2000 and research on the 1994 incident at P4W that resulted in
the Arbour Inquiry, we demonstrate that the Canadian correctional sys-
tem responds punitively to women prisoners who resist the traditional
gender scripts of femininity. In keeping with a feminist perspective, the
misbehaved female poses a threat to patriarchal authority and the hierar-
chical social order (Knelman, 1998; Wright & Myers 1996, pp. xiii-xiv).
The central focus of this article is on how CSC uses ideological control,
exemplified through its policies and practices, to keep women in a sub-
jugated position. Our main argument is that CSC disproportionately
punishes women who deviate from traditionally proscribed gender roles
and scripts, particularly through any misbehavior that expresses resist-
ance and attempts to secure empowerment (Bosworth, 1999). Alongside
this, we also show that CSC ideology supports a traditional passive or
compliant definition of womanhood and femininity. For this purpose, we
investigate CSC’s response to two traditionally “unfeminine” types of
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292 The Prison Journal
institutional conduct: (a) women’s self-harm and (b) women’s violence
against others.
Methodology and Data Sources
The data sources for this article are generated from two independent
research projects undertaken by the authors. Both projects are directed by
what feminist researchers, Kirby and McKenna identify as research being
done “by, for and with people on the margins” (1989, p. 22). The first
project is an exploratory study of self-harm by women in provincial and
federal prisons in Canada as well as in an urban community. The study
focused on how criminalized women understand self-harm and on the sup-
ports and care they received from service providers. A feminist and partici-
patory approach to research methodology was adopted to ensure that the
women’s welfare was placed at the centre of the research. To do this, the
researchers established a diverse research team of women who participated
in all stages of the research process. The research team included Aboriginal
and non-Aboriginal incarcerated and community women who had self-
harmed, academics, the Executive Director of a local Elizabeth Fry Society,
a social worker, a law student, and other social service agency representa-
tives. This approach was developed to ensure the inclusion of the diversity
of women’s voices and experiences (Castellano, 1993; Smith, 1999).
Consistent with a feminist approach to research methodology, a variety of
data gathering techniques were used, including interviews with women
who self-harmed, both in the community (N = 27) and in correctional insti-
tutions (N = 14); a focus group with federally incarcerated women (N = 6);
interviews with community agency and correctional staff (N = 9); correc-
tional staff surveys (N = 4); and a review of community and correctional
policies. This article focuses on interviews and surveys with federal cor-
rectional officers.
The data sources for the second research project on CSC’s responses to
the incident at P4W included the sworn court transcripts of the public
hearing proceedings and the public consultation process of the Arbour
Inquiry. The public hearing proceedings examined the policies and proce-
dures used by CSC to respond to the claimed violent events being perpetrated
by women prisoners at the Kingston P4W in April, 1994. The proceedings
concentrated on the determination of factual events that took place at the
prison beginning on April 22, 1994 and through the 9 months that fol-
lowed. A total of 18 of the 22 hearing witnesses were CSC representatives,
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including (a) the Warden of the Prison for Women, (b) several correctional
officers, and (c) the Commissioner of CSC. The public hearing proceedings
commenced on August 9, 1995 and concluded in the week of December 11,
1995 with a total of 16 trial days. Furthermore, the public consultation
process headed by Justice Louise Arbour, which involved roundtable dis-
cussions with legal counsel, examined social policy questions that arose
from CSC’s response to the events at P4W. The roundtable included discus-
sions of the programming, treatment, and health needs of women prisoners,
and debate concerning the issue of cross-gender staffing. A total of 59 CSC
representatives attended six roundtable discussions. Similar to the focus of
the self-harm study, for this research we also concentrate on the contribu-
tions of correctional officers.
Consistent with the feminist principles guiding our work, a grounded
theoretical methodological approach was selected for the analysis. Using
grounded theory allowed us to generate themes only inasmuch as they
emerged from our data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).
However, this research simultaneously employed a deductive approach as
we also examined the data for the presence of preestablished themes that
were generated from a review of the existing literature. Adopting Glaser
and Strauss’ (1967) constant comparative technique to analyzing data, we
repeatedly moved back and forth between both sets of data and our emerg-
ing theory regarding the construction of federally sentenced criminalized
women in Canada. This process allowed us to identify how CSC con-
structed a dichotomous image of women prisoners that is based on both
their self-harming and outwardly violent behavior. Ultimately, we blended
elements of both an inductive grounded theoretical approach with a deduc-
tive approach, which strengthened the overall research design and increased
the validity of the findings.
Findings
Drawing on interviews with correctional officers, evaluations of institu-
tional policy regarding women’s self-harm, and the Arbour Inquiry tran-
scripts, we demonstrate how CSC’s response to women’s conduct promotes
a traditional conception of women as powerless. Women who commit acts
of violence against themselves and others are viewed and responded to by
CSC in two key ways: (a) in a manner that upholds the traditional construc-
tion of women as powerless and (b) in a manner that severely punishes
women for acting unfeminine, that is, misbehaving. We conclude with a
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theoretical understanding of CSC’s harsh response to women’s institution-
ally defined “unfeminine” behavior.
Self-Harm Study
According to the narratives of the correctional officers in the self-harm
study, we found that CSC interpreted the women’s self-harming behavior in
accordance with patriarchal definitions of womanhood. Adopting this patriar-
chal ideology, CSC subsequently constructed the identity of women who self-
harm in two ways: (a) as immature and childlike and (b) as seductive and
immoral. Both characterizations reflect traditional assumptions of women’s
powerlessness and reify historical gender stereotypes of women, particularly
women in prison. Similar to what has been found in the existing literature
(Heney, 1990; Kilty, 2006; Ross, McKay, & Palmer, 1979) with regard to self-
harming behavior, correctional staff tended to interpret women’s self-harm in
ways that identified the women as manipulative or controlling of staff and as
threatening to the order and discipline of the institution. Consequently, wom-
en’s conduct was viewed as “unfeminine” and therefore as punishable. These
constructions led correctional staff to place a greater priority on the security of
the institution with respect to their responses to women who self-harmed. This
overfocus on security in terms of correctional responses to self-harming
behavior is rooted in CSC policy that inappropriately reconstructs women’s
behavior as risky and which impedes the potential adoption of a more appro-
priate holistic and needs-based approach (Kilty, 2006).
Without careful consideration of the women’s histories of trauma, the
institutional officials responded with harsh and punitive measures, such as
physical restraints, as a means to control and prevent women’s self-harm.
Consistent with the existing literature, correctional officials in this study
report that they use segregation to reduce the likelihood of women instigating
an epidemic of self-harm (Cookson, 1977; Heney, 1990; Kilty, 2006; Ross
et al., 1979). This approach fails to recognize two things: (a) that some women
may become more agitated with a transfer to segregation fearing the greater
restriction and isolation will increase their self-harming behavior and (b) that
some women may want to be removed from the general population to a more
conducive therapeutic environment rather than to segregation, which they
view as punishment (Dell & Beauchamp, 2006; Kilty, 2006, p. 178).
Identity
The CSC’s construction of the identity of women who self-harm empha-
sized traditional constructions of women as powerless in two main ways.
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The first characterization shared by correctional officers was their identifi-
cation of the women as immature and childlike. Correctional officers effec-
tively infantilized the women’s self-harming behavior by their perception
that they were using self-harm to compete “like children” for attention.
This is illustrated in the following quote:
[She was] very immature. It always came down to if one got more attention
than the other, that would set off the other one . . . As soon as staff paid more
attention to one, the other one tended to act out then to get attention.
(Interview #1, Correctional Staff)
When describing the women who self-harmed, staff conjured images of
self-harming behavior as childish by repeatedly using common phrases such
as “silly” and “acting badly.”
Correctional staff also characterized the women as seductresses, by
focusing on the patriarchal stereotype that women want to be overpowered
and controlled. This construction of the women’s identity is captured in the
following narrative, which describes a correctional officer’s perception of
a woman who had a chronic history of self-harm:
And she would purposely act out, so they would have to restrain her, and that
to me, was a sexual thing . . . And [then] she and everything was A-okay and
hunky-dory. (Interview #4, Correctional Staff)
These characterizations help to create an identity for women as being
powerless, especially those who self-harm. The constructions of women as
childlike or as sexualized reinforce the traditional, patriarchal definition of
women’s gender roles.
Conduct
Although correctional staffs’ characterizations of women who self-harm
tended to emphasize their childlike and sexual nature, their interpretations of
the women’s behavior offered a contradictory portrayal of them as (a) being
manipulative or controlling and (b) posing a threat or danger. The first inter-
pretation, that women who self-harm are manipulating the institutional staff
to get what they want or to gain control over the staff, is reflected in the fol-
lowing narrative:
It was very difficult in the beginning when we had her because she would
pick and choose which staff she wanted to talk to or which staff she liked to
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act up with. [She was] very manipulative, so we had to be very careful about
that. (Interview #3, Correctional Staff)
The second interpretation of women’s self-harm as threatening to the
security and the order of the institution is most evident in the staffs’
concern about an epidemic of self-harm. The overriding concern among
correctional staff appeared to be that other women would copy this
“unfeminine” behavior and that the “misbehavior” would get out of
control.
She was very [much] a follower. So, if anyone was hurting themselves or
acting up, she would follow suit. (Interview #3, Correctional Staff)
Identifying women’s self-harming behavior as manipulative, as an
attempt to control staff, and as threatening to the order and discipline of
the institution, supports the construction and view of criminalized women
as “misbehaving” and acting “unfeminine.” It also illustrates correctional
authorities’ reliance on the belief that self-harming behavior poses a risk for
others to similarly follow suit, which has been supported by some literature
(Heney, 1990). However, this conclusion is not universal (Fillmore & Dell,
2001) and to reconstruct women’s needs as institutional risk factors is anti-
thetical to the claimed underlying women-centered philosophy of Canadian
corrections for women. Moreover, the operational response of segregating
women who have self-harmed punishes women in crisis, despite links to an
increase in the frequency and severity of the self-harming behavior (Kilty,
2006; Martel, 1999).
Correctional Service of Canada’s response: practice and policy
Correctional staff tended to view women’s self-harm as a security risk
which necessitated an assessment of the degree of seriousness of self-harm
along a continuum from less serious to increasingly more serious forms of
aggressive conduct. As a result, correctional staff tended to take an increas-
ingly more punitive and disciplinary approach in their responses to women
in an attempt to quash what they perceived as more aggressive and disrup-
tive forms of self-harm. One correctional officer’s response to the percep-
tion of a more threatening or unmanageable form of self-harm is explained
in the following narrative:
Um, she would hit herself, do silly things like stand on the sink and try to
jump down and hurt herself that way. Um, we ended up having to put her in
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the shackles so she only had limited movement. (Interview #5, Correctional
Officer)
Prioritizing security over any kind of therapeutic treatment had a number
of ramifications. It ensured that any sense of control and power associated
with the women’s “unfeminine” conduct was diminished and that their
behavior was actively “contained.” It also meant that the women’s mental
health needs were of secondary importance.
The escalation of harsh and punitive responses by correctional staff was
most evident in their use of physical restraints and in the segregation of
women in suicide smocks while under camera observation. In order for cor-
rectional staff to implement these disciplinary tools of control, they had to
justify their necessity by emphasizing their preventative value. This is despite
existing research that documents how women are retraumatized by these cor-
rectional practices (Fillmore, 2005). Women who self-harm have a high inci-
dence of childhood physical and sexual abuse, and these punitive practices
have the potential to trigger past experiences of abuse and trauma (Heney &
Kristiansen, 1997). Yet the standard practice in many Canadian correctional
facilities is the persistent use of segregation, both for women who have self-
harmed and for women who are assessed as high risk for the possibility of
self-harming behavior. The dehumanizing and punishing responses are recog-
nized and even questioned by some correctional officers:
Either someone would talk with her, or if it was determined that she was not
able to control it, then they would put her in that smock . . . If somebody’s
a high suicide risk, they have to be in that smock. They have no other cloth-
ing provided to them, and everything is taken away from them. They only
have their mattress. If they start pulling that apart to use any parts of it to
harm themselves, then that’s taken away as well. So, in the end, you’re sit-
ting only in a smock in a room with nothing in it. Because if you’re starting
to wreck things, they take everything. You don’t even get a book to read. I
don’t know how that’s healthy. Sometimes she wouldn’t even wear the
smock, she would just be naked. And, you know, to me, I often wonder, are
we doing the right things here? You know, we’re taking everything from
them and we’re making them wear some ugly smock you know, with no
underwear. Sometimes she would go a week or more being like that.
(Interview #1, Correctional Staff)
At present, CSC has responded in part to the criticism of imposing punitive
measures on women who self-harm or who are at risk of suicide. There has
been a recent change in policy objectives that clearly stipulates that women
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“shall not be subjected to disciplinary measures for their self-injurious
behaviour” (CSC, 2002). Despite this amendment to policy, restraints con-
tinue to be used as an acceptable response: “Restraints, including security
garments, may be used to reduce the risk of self-injury” (CSC, 2001).
Furthermore, a woman who is identified as being high risk for self-harm
may also be placed on suicide watch and transferred to a suicide watch cell
(CSC, 2002). CSC’s new directive does not fundamentally challenge the
traditional punitive response to women’s self-harm but rather continues to
legitimize past institutional practices that are unduly harsh; this failure to
truly make a change in policy and practice comes in spite of a growing
body of research that clearly supports nonpunitive measures and a holistic
approach to healing. The painful irony is that current research consistently
reports that a woman’s risk of self-harm is greater in segregation (Martel,
1999) and also, despite CSC’s continued linkage of the two, that self-harm
(slashing) and suicide are not synonymous (Fillmore, 2005). Women who
self-harm need opportunities and outlets for peer and counselor support
rather than isolation, which is viewed as punishment (Faith, 1993; Fillmore
& Dell, 2005; Heney, 1990; Kilty, 2006).
Arbour Inquiry
In the Arbour Inquiry court transcripts, extensive testimony emerged
regarding how CSC interpreted and responded to the women’s conduct as
well as how CSC simultaneously constructed the identities of women pris-
oners as misbehaved and passive. The testimony demonstrates that CSC
fails to recognize the heterogeneity and differences across women prison-
ers and persists in constructing women as a homogeneous group who share
traditional and patriarchal stereotypes of criminalized women. In particu-
lar, CSC patriarchal gender ideology supports the identification of “vio-
lent” female prisoners as powerless. A key component of the construction
of the misbehaved woman is to represent her in opposition to traditional
and accepted conceptualizations of womanhood. For example, construct-
ing a criminalized woman as overtly sexual is done to emphasize her
potential dangerousness. As such, given CSC’s adherence to this construc-
tion of the “misbehaved” and “unfeminine” criminalized woman, this con-
struction facilitates their perception of her verbal and physical conduct as
being violent or threatening. At the same time, it legitimizes CSC’s disem-
powering and punitive responses in the attempt to regain control of the
women and to maintain the “good order” of the institution. As a result of
this focus on regaining control, CSC’s responses tend to infantilize women
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prisoners. In an ultimate attempt at regaining control of the women involved
in the incident at the P4W, correctional staff responded with the deploy-
ment of the Institutional Emergency Response Team, which quashed any
sense of power or agency associated with the women’s conduct.
Identity
In the court transcripts, a significant amount of attention was paid to
characterizations of women prisoners as being powerless. First, as in the
self-harm study, CSC responded to the women’s conduct in a paternalistic
manner as though the woman were immature and even childlike. There is a
disjuncture between CSC’s construction of the violent woman prisoner and
some of their paternalistic responses, which actually suggest that women
prisoners are in need of nurturing and caring to restore them to proper
womanhood. This construction is clearly separate from the traditional mas-
culine sense of power more commonly associated with a violent identity.
Illustrations include CSC’s Institutional Emergency Response Team’s
(IERT) stated discomfort over the use of force with women and direct
analogies of violent women as children. For example, a member of the
regional administration of correctional operations stated that
When the IERT started to go up the stairs, Mr. Dafoe described it as being
suddenly going dead quiet, the way children quiet when they are doing some-
thing mischievous. (Grant 6245)
Similar to the self-harm findings, the women were sexualized through
the use of such terminology as “baby dolls” to refer to the women’s medical
gowns and “panties” to their underwear. To illustrate this, one correctional
supervisor and coordinator of the IERT stated,
Then you go on to say “Offenders permitted baby dolls.” Is it fair to say that “baby
dolls” is an expression that refers usually to security gowns? (Jackson 2333)
No (Dafoe 2333)
No. What are they, in your understanding? (Jackson 2333)
I believe that night that is what the Staff called them: the “baby dolls.” (Dafoe
2333)
These constructions of the “violent” women involved in the incident at
the P4W adhere to traditional patriarchal and stereotypical constructions of
women. The CSC’s powerless characterizations were also reflected in the
use of sexist and oppressive language when referring to adult female pris-
oners, such as “girls,” “ladies,” and “rule of thumb.” Consistent with the
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300 The Prison Journal
findings of the self-harm study, these characterizations reflect CSC’s reli-
ance on traditional gendered stereotypes of women.
Conduct
Analysis of the court transcripts suggests that women incarcerated at the
P4W were identified as misbehaving based on both their physical actions
and their nonphysical and verbal conduct. Again, this is particularly evident
in the Arbour Inquiry findings that the IERT should not have been deployed
to P4W. This finding likewise suggests that CSC supports traditional gen-
der roles for women in society. Existing literature on the deployment of
Institutional Emergency Response Teams for male prisoners reveals that
the IERT is overwhelmingly used in response to physical violence. This is
an important finding because according to CSC policy, an IERT is to be
deployed to deal with women and men for equivalent reasons, for example,
any threat to institutional security, safety, and control (Marron, 1996).
However, the IERT was not deployed to P4W because of an ongoing threat
or occurrence of physical violence, and as the Arbour Inquiry concluded,
its deployment represented a violation of CSC regulations and the women’s
human rights.
Nonphysical and verbal conduct. The nonphysical and verbal concep-
tualization of the women’s conduct focused overwhelmingly on women
making too much noise. The notion that for women making noise consti-
tutes a form of violence supports the infantilization of women prisoners
and aids in reconstructing them as powerless. As identified by CSC, noise
making included “yelling,” “banging,” “hollering,” “screaming,” “demand-
ing,” “ranting and raving,” and “being verbally disrespectful and disrup-
tive.” This interpretation of the women’s noise making by correctional
staff as threatening or as a form of violent behavior, supports our claim
that CSC has an inherently gender-biased and patriarchal structure and
ideology. This is illustrated in the following statement of a male correc-
tional officer at the P4W:
Well, what was taking place that prevented you from giving them a shower at
that point? (Jackson 2997)
I don’t give them showers, first of all [because male]. They were ranting and
raving and carrying on, and screaming and hollering, and we just wanted to
get off the range at that time. (Waller 2997)
In addition to infantilizing women, correctional staff frequently character-
ized their conduct as manipulative. Similar to the findings of the self-harm
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study, by identifying the women’s conduct as manipulative and violent,
correctional staff justified the use of an excessively harsh response, namely
the deployment of the IERT. The identification of the women’s behavior as
manipulative is in line with the typical construction of criminalized women
as misbehaved and unfeminine. Moreover, the construction of the women’s
verbal comments as threatening and even violent illustrates how CSC
depends on a patriarchal definition of womanhood and femininity. In either
case, the tendency is for CSC to respond with attempts to impose oppres-
sive controls and to disempower the women. Illustrations of this conceptu-
alization include CSC’s arguments that “women threaten to get what they
want,” “women threaten to slash,” “women had removed their clothing to
shock the IERT in the past,” and “women use illegitimate medical concerns
as bargaining tools.” CSC’s identification of this conduct as manipulative
supports their attempts to disempower the women’s expression of their
identities and further characterizes them as acting outside of their tradi-
tional gender-role behavior, which again justifies the use of a paternalistic
as well as punitive response. The following statement from a member of the
union of Solicitor General Employees illustrates the construction of women
prisoners as manipulative:
When medications—when there is an attempt to reduce them or hold them
back, often times inmates will manipulate or act out to get those medications
and when staff says no, and continues to refuse the medications because they
do not have the authority to give them, calls are made to doctors [by the
prisoners] and doctors authorize them. And it may or may not be in the neces-
sary best interest of the institution as a whole. (Ray 331-2, Phase II)
Physical conduct. Institutional violence committed by women prisoners
is frequently characterized as acting out behavior. Examples of this behav-
ior in the Arbour Inquiry transcripts include reference to the women “bang-
ing on cell bars,” “smashing a cell,” “setting sanitary napkins on fire,”
“throwing urine,” “throwing refuse,” and “using aggressive behavior such
as pushing and shoving.” All these examples were used by the CSC in their
reconstruction of the women as violent and in need of increased security.
The Deputy Commissioner of Corrections, Ontario region, stated,
In Kitchener, for example, we’re presently looking at nine houses. As well,
we’re looking at one enhanced unit which will have eight beds, as well as
four cells for violent, acting-out behaviour offenders for short periods of
time. (Kulik 158)
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302 The Prison Journal
Similarly, the women’s “acting out” conduct was used to paint an image
of the women as out of control. Uncontrollable conduct was described by
CSC as “women attempting to take over the range,” “chaos,” “being non-
compliant,” “the women being armed and dangerous,” “the need to regain
control,” “women needing to settle and calm down,” “a tumultuous nature
to women’s activities,” and “mayhem.” By constructing the women’s behav-
ior as out of control and as unfeminine, CSC justified their deployment of
the IERT. The Warden of the P4W, for example, stated that
My overview is that the behaviour showed at least some, if not all, were out
of control given that we no longer had control of that area in a safe way.
(Cassidy 5640)
In addition to constructing the women as out of control, the women’s
conduct was characterized as misbehaving or bad. Misbehaving and bad
conduct is defined by CSC as behavior that is not considered typical of
women, and includes “garbage coming out of the women’s mouths and
cells,” direct reference to “acting bad,” “uncivilized,” “unsocialized,” “dis-
respectful,” “can’t act like this on the outside,” “not disciplined,” “need to
behave,” “acting inappropriately,” “not obeying rules,” and “unacceptable
behavior.” CSC’s identification of the women’s conduct as misbehavior or
bad supports the characterization of their actions as meaningless, as lacking
any possibility of resistance or agency. By failing to adhere to the traditional
patriarchal definition of femininity, the women are not identified as “nor-
mal” women. In fact, they were defined as the opposite. A P4W correctional
supervisor, for example, stated,
In your opinion, was it necessary?
Let me put it to you another way Mr. Gillis: Could April 26th have been avoided
by any steps taken between April 22nd and . . . (Scully 1992)
Yes, I think it could have been. I think if the six offending inmates had behaved
themselves, we would not be here today. (Gillis 1992)
Conclusion
We have argued that the structure and ideological foundation of CSC is
inherently oppressive toward women prisoners. In its adherence to tradi-
tional and patriarchal characterizations of womanhood, CSC demonstrates
its attempt to render imprisoned women powerless. The abuse and misuse
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of power by CSC was most evident in the deployment of a primarily male
IERT into a woman’s prison. In this case, patriarchal gender ideology
informed CSC’s policies and responses to the women’s “misbehavior” and
operated to restrict their agency and potential to resist or challenge correc-
tional policies and practices. Similar findings were drawn from the self-
harm study, where women and girls were often infantilized and responded
to punitively as a result of their self-harming behavior.
In the decade following the Arbour Inquiry, women’s struggle for power
continues to be challenged as a threat to the patriarchal structure of capi-
talism. In the interest of maintaining patriarchal capitalism, institutional
constraints continue to perpetuate the status quo. A primary technique of
institutional constraint is the construction of a powerless female identity.
Within the context of Canadian corrections, women are encouraged to be
passive, weak, complacent, dependent, and nonviolent, and when depar-
tures from this script do occur, women are deterred through punitive and
disciplinary practices.
The findings of this research indicate that the gender ideology shap-
ing CSC’s policies and practices maintains and reproduces the subordi-
nation of women prisoners. In addition, the findings suggest that CSC
reconstructed the women’s conduct as misbehaved and unfeminine,
which then warranted harsh and punitive responses. The misbehaved
woman is punished not only for her behavior, but also for not adhering
to her traditional gender role. In this context, breaking the law or rules
becomes secondary to a woman deviating from her feminine identity or
traditional womanhood (Knelman, 1998; Wright & Myers, 1996, pp.
xiii-xiv). Focusing on traditional constructions of womanhood rein-
forces the marginalization of women by CSC; as a result, the regulation
of women prisoners takes a specific and gendered form that relies on the
acceptance of traditional ideals of passive, feminine behavior. In possi-
bly no other Canadian institution is the oppression of women as apparent
as it is in corrections. Though the findings are not generalizable to other
institutional contexts, they offer a starting point for future examinations.
Acknowledging the location of power in patriarchal capitalism provides
a basis for understanding why and how the constructions of women as
passive, childlike, and in need of domination are upheld in Canadian
society.7
An important objective of this article is to analyze the impact of CSC’s
traditional gender ideologies and how they influenced correctional poli-
cies and practices toward women who “misbehaved.” Although we have
found the response of CSC to be largely punitive, an emergent theme in
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304 The Prison Journal
the court transcripts, interview, and policy data reviewed for both studies
was CSC’s stated commitment toward progressive change. However, we
argue that although the P4W has since closed, and CSC’s philosophy and
more recent policies toward federally sentenced women shifted in the
1990s, the ideological foundation of CSC continues to be deeply embed-
ded within its historically oppressive and gendered structure. Consequently,
it is suggested that these research findings be used as a caution for the
operation of the new regional women’s institutions. At the same time we
need to acknowledge and further understand where and how progress has
been made (e.g., Women Offenders Substance Abuse Program and other
institutional programming; Yuen, 2008).
The need for further inquiry is highlighted both by the findings of this
study and by other incidences of abuses of power, blatant disregard, and
disdain for the law on the part of CSC as it relates to incarcerated women
in Canada (Pate, 1999, p. 44). For example, The CAEFS registered a com-
plaint regarding discriminatory treatment of federally sentenced women by
the Canadian government in March, 2001. The complaint was made on the
grounds that there was discriminatory treatment of the women prisoners by
correctional staff, and it contravened several of the prohibited grounds
under Section 3.1 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
In addition, and since the release of the report of the Arbour Inquiry in
1996, human rights violations continue to be documented in the new regional
correctional institutions for women. In a 1999 article, Kim Pate states,
[the following examples] provide a mere taste of the sorts of human rights
issues we have tried to address since Arbour: women being strip searched
outside the legislation and policy and mandatory routine way where ever
the correctional service of Canada policy permits strip searching for
cause; women being stripped, shackled and left chained naked to a metal
bed frame, without a mattress, in segregation; women being strapped to
body boards in segregation; [and] minimum security women being sent
into the community in shackles in various forms of temporary absences.
(p. 45)
Pate also stated during her presentation at the June 2002 Canadian
Congress on the Social Sciences and Humanities, that in that year in her
work with federally sentenced women prisoners across Canada, she has
seen the greatest number and most blatant violations of human rights
against women prisoners than in the past decade. This evidentiary claim
from a frontline worker attests to the need for future research on the experi-
ences of women in prison.
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Notes
1. Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo were charged with the slayings of two girls.
Homolka was convicted in 1993 of manslaughter and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Paul
Bernardo was sentenced to life in prison in 1995, under a dangerous offender classification.
On March 28, 2000 a three-judge panel dismissed Bernardo’s appeal of his 1995 murder con-
viction. Homolka was released in July, 2005 at her warrant expiry date, after serving 12 years
in federal prison in Canada.
2. The 1993 (Correctional Service of Canada [CSC], 1993) document, Creating Choices:
Report of the Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women initiated the closing of Canada’s one
central federal correctional institution, the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario, on July 6,
2000 and the relocation of women prisoners among newly constructed women’s federal insti-
tutions in each region (Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairie, and Pacific).
3. The mandate of the 1990 Task Force of Federally Sentenced Women was to examine the
correctional management of federally sentenced women from the commencement of sentence
to the date of warrant expiry and to develop a plan that would guide and direct the process in a
manner that was responsive to the unique and special needs of this group. The work began from
the point of acknowledging that although the needs and situation of federally sentenced women
had been studied on numerous occasions in the past, the problems experienced by these women,
those they offended, and those who have tried to help them remain the same. The final report
is titled, Creating Choices: Report of the Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women.
4. The Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS) is an umbrella organiza-
tion of 24 sister societies across Canada that assist women and girls at risk or in conflict with
the law.
5. A further criticism is offered by Pollack (2000):
Although Creating Choices contains an emphasis on the role of racism in Aboriginal
women’s lives, the voices of Black women and other women of colour are absent from
this document. This omission may be related to the document’s over-emphasis on
gender as the primary axis of oppression in federally incarcerated women’s lives. An
alternative analysis . . . illustrates the convergence of racist and classist practices that
enforce Black women’s dependency. (p. 80)
6. The Arbour Inquiry was formerly known as the Commission of Inquiry into Certain
Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The Arbour Inquiry was man-
dated to investigate the management and response of CSC pertaining to the strip-searching and
segregation of women that occurred at the Kingston Prison for Women in April, 1994. The
Inquiry found that the Service’s decision to deploy the Institutional Emergency Response
Team (IERT) led to serious violations not only of official regulations but also of the women’s
human rights. The reconstruction of women as being unmanageable and violent served to
legitimize an overly punitive correctional response (Arbour, 1996).
7. It is important to acknowledge the work of such authors as Bosworth (1999) and Faith
(1994) and their recognition of the role of resistance and agency on the part of incarcerated
women. They suggest that incarcerated women do not passively accept imposed definitions of
their female identity, but rather contest it in various ways. It is proposed that CSC’s attempts to
inhibit women’s resistance by labeling them as unnatural and evil and in other powerless ways.
Representing women as out of control, for example, suggests their behavior is biologically
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306 The Prison Journal
determined, which denies women agency, a sense of choice, and autonomy. These authors
would suggest that the application of such an identity is not a complete success on the part of
CSC. Although not the focus of this research, it is important that women’s agency in their
acceptance and rejection of imposed identities is acknowledged. Exploring the interactive
effects of the labeler and the labeled would add an important and additional layer of analysis
to this research.
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Colleen Anne Dell is the Research Chair in Substance Abuse at the University of Saskatchewan
and a senior research associate at the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. Her current
research interests and projects focus on the relationship between identity and healing from
drug addiction, substance abuse treatment programming, women’s criminalization and self-
harm, and the connection between youth resiliency and inhalant abuse.
Catherine J. Fillmore is an associate professor in the sociology department at the University
of Winnipeg, where she teaches courses in the areas of criminology. Her research practices
involve community-oriented projects that focus on social justice issues for marginalized and
disenfranchised groups, particularly criminalized women and girls who self-harm.
Jennifer M. Kilty is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology and the Social
Science of Health at the University of Ottawa. Her research interests include the medicaliza-
tion and psychiatrization of women in prison, social control strategies, self-injurious behaviors
committed by prisoners, the construction and negotiation of identity and citizenship, and
prison abolition as a way to combat the prison industrial complex.
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