Disruptive Prisoners

Resistance, Reform, and the New Deal

Chris Clarkson author Melissa Munn author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Toronto Press

Published:20th Jul '21

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Disruptive Prisoners cover

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.

"Including prisoner stories in an historical context provided a more nuanced and complicated reframing of the post-Archambault Commission era."

-- Beverly Cramp * BC BookWorld *

"The pair [Clarkson and Munn] writes with a cohesive voice, and considering the polyvocal and collective biographical approach they take towards their writing, this is impressive."

-- Katie-Marie McNeill, Queen’s University * Labour/Le Travail

ISBN: 9781487525910

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 19mm

Weight: 460g

320 pages