The political discourse on women prisoners and the issue of co-corrections in Canada.

Abstract

This study explores the political discourse on women in prison and the issue of co-corrections in Canada. Tentative propositions were generated regarding the nature of the official rhetoric, feminist position and female inmates' perspective on the treatment of Canadian female prisoners and the issue of shared services. First, provisional generalizations were developed through a review of the American literature dealing with female imprisonment and co-corrections in the United States. Subsequently, through an analysis of the major Canadian penitentiary reports, official female offender reports, relevant parliamentary debates, and an interview with a group of women in P4W, the generalizations were tested against the Canadian context. An effort has been made to develop a substantive theory of the political discourse on women in prison and the issue of co-corrections in Canada. Generally, the tentative framework generated through the analysis of the American literature and the debates on co-corrections in the United States was validated. Some peculiar Canadian features, however, did prompt a revision of the original 'model'. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)