A Good Place to Do Time? Detailing the Construction of Symbolic Social Boundaries in Correctional Boot Camps.

Drawing on qualitative interviews with 51 incarcerated adult men and nine correctional officers in a Western Canadian prison system, we ask why some incarcerated people find it appealing to be placed on correctional boot camp units and what such appeals tell us about broader conditions of incarceration. Participants on three boot camp units drew on narratives relating to (a) extrinsic benefits, (b) discipline and structure, (c) teamwork and positive relationships, and (d) an opportunity for self-improvement to construct symbolic boundaries between "normal" units and boot camps, as well as their former self and their transformed current self. By drawing symbolic boundaries between the past and present and between other units and their boot camp unit, our participants create narratives that allow them to partially mitigate some pains of imprisonment.

Calories, commerce, and culture: The multiple valuations of food in prison.

In the last two decades, a body of critical scholarship has emerged accentuating the social and cultural importance of food in prison. This article employs a tripartite conceptual framework for contemplating and demarcating food's different valuations in prison. We draw from our interviews with over 500 incarcerated individuals to demonstrate how acquiring, trading, and preparing food is inscribed with use, exchange, and sign values. In doing so, we provide illustrative examples of how food informs processes of stratification, distinction, and violence in prison.

"I have to be a man for my son": The narrative uses of fatherhood in prison.

Research on incarcerated fathers tends to accentuate the harmful familial consequences of parental incarceration and discuss how having children might prompt incarcerated fathers to desist from crime. Less attention has focused on how narratives of fatherhood shape the day-to-day dynamics of incarceration. Drawing on 93 qualitative interviews with incarcerated fathers in Western Canada, we focus specifically on our participants' parenting narratives. Such narratives are significant interventions in the world, allowing incarcerated fathers to frame their identities in particular ways while simultaneously shaping personal behaviour. Our research, 1. Identifies important fatherhood narratives provided by our participants, and 2. Details how such narratives operate in prison, allowing our participants to advance personal agendas that are themselves related to the dynamics of incarceration. In doing so, we provide insights into incarcerated fathers' situations and advance criminological efforts to appreciate how different actors entangled in the criminal justice system conceive, manage, and narrate their situation.

Narcan and Narcan't: Implementation factors influencing police officer use of Narcan.

First responders-including police officers-play a prominent role in managing the risk of fentanyl overdoses. In many jurisdictions, they have Naloxone (also commercially available as Narcan) at their disposal to counter the effects of an opioid overdose. Little empirical research exists on how effectively police are incorporating this emergency rescue medication into routine practice. Between 2018 and 2019, we conducted semi-structured interviews with police officers from two Western Canadian police organizations. We also administered organization-wide web surveys to determine what factors facilitate or inhibit the incorporation of Narcan into police practice by looking at two domains: 1) the inner setting of the police organization and 2) personal knowledge of, and attitudes toward, an intervention. Whether officers administered Narcan depended on several personal and organizational factors, including: 1) having sufficient knowledge and concern about the fentanyl situation, 2) being knowledgeable about Narcan and trained in its use, 3) the medication being readily available to officers, and 4) being willing to administer it to citizens.

Fentanyl behind bars: The implications of synthetic opiates for prisoners and correctional officers.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Fentanyl and derivatives are lethal components of North America's opioid crisis. Prisons often house a disproportionate number of illicit opiate users. To date, no on-the-ground empirical research exists on how opioids are altering the health and risk profile of prisons. The objectives of this study were to examine (1) how fentanyl and its analogues have shaped the prison experience for prisoners; and (2) how these opioids have altered the occupation of correctional officers (CO's). METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 587 adult prisoners and 131 COs across four provincial prisons in Western Canada. Prisoners were recruited on their housing units and randomly selected. COs were recruited through non-probability, theoretical sampling. We employed a generalized prompt guide and asked a range of questions pertaining to how the presence of fentanyl and its analogues have changed the prison experience for prisoners and have impacted the work routine of COs. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, thematically coded and analyzed using Nvivo 11. RESULTS: For prisoners, we identified four main results: (1) the presence of fentanyl leads to an increased number of overdoses; (2) prisons are nonetheless perceived as a comparatively safe place to use drugs; (3) fentanyl is often mixed into other drugs, making it hard for drug users to avoid fentanyl; and (4) prisoners fear fentanyl is being weaponized. For officers, we identified: (1) increased fears about inadvertent personal exposure or widespread institutional opioid contamination; (2) fear of targeted poisonings; (3) changing attitudes towards opioid-using prisoners; and (4) a declining commitment to correctional careers. CONCLUSION: The presence of fentanyl in prisons has significantly influenced how prisoners experience prison and relate to each other and how COs perceive their job. COs now identify fentanyl as the greatest risk to their safety in prisons.

Planning for the worst: risk, uncertainty and the Olympic Games.

Security for the Olympic Games has become undeniably visible in recent years. A certain degree of this visibility became unavoidable after the 1972 Munich Olympics when military personnel and hardware became standard elements of Olympic security. Yet, this visibility is qualitatively different today in that it is often deliberately fashioned for public consumption. This article argues that this expressive dimension of security at the Games provides a window into wider issues of how authorities 'show' that they can deliver on the promise of maximum security under conditions of radical uncertainty. The latter sections of this article examine three ways in which this promise is extended: the discursive work of managers of unease, the staging of highly stylized demonstration projects, and the fabrication of fantasy documents. We focus on how officials emphasize that they have contemplated and planned for all possible security threats, especially catastrophic threats and worst-case scenarios. Actually planning for these events is epistemologically and practically impossible, but saying and showing that authorities are 'planning for the worst' are discursive ways of transforming uncertainty into apparently manageable risks that are independent of the functional activities they describe. As such, our analysis provides insights into the much broader issue of how authorities sustain the appearance of maximum security in order to maintain rhetorical control over what are deemed to be highly uncertain and insecure situations. Such performances may paradoxically amplify uncertainty, thus recreating the conditions that foster the ongoing securitization of everyday life.