|
Showing 1 - 10 of
10 matches in All Departments
Realizing a good life is almost always defined in material terms,
typified by individuals (usually men) who have considerable wealth.
But classed, gendered, and racialized social supports enable the
"self-made man." Instead, this book turns to Indigenous knowledge
about realizing a good life to explore how marginalized men
endeavour to overcome systemic inequalities in their efforts to
achieve wholeness, balance, connection, harmony, and healing.
Twenty-three men, most of whom are Indigenous, share their stories
of this journey. For most, the pathway started in challenging
circumstances -- intergenerational trauma, disrupted families and
child welfare interventions, racism and bullying, and physical and
sexual abuse. Most coped with the pain through drugging and
drinking or joining a street gang, setting many on a trajectory to
jail. Caught in the criminal justice net, realizing a good life was
even more daunting as their identities and life chances became
barriers. Some of the men, however, have made great strides to
realize a good life. They tell us how they got out of "the
problem," with insights on how to maintain sobriety, navigate
systemic barriers, and forge connections and circles of support.
Ultimately, it comes down to social supports -- and caring. As one
man put it, change happened when he "had to care for somebody else"
in a way he wanted to be cared for.
Criminalizing women has become all too frequent in these neoliberal
times. Meanwhile, poverty, racism and misogyny continue to frame
criminalized women's lives. Criminalizing Women introduces the key
issues addressed by feminists engaged in criminology research over
the past four decades. The contributors explore how narratives that
construct women as errant females, prostitutes, street gang
associates and symbols of moral corruption mask the connections
between women's restricted choices and the conditions of their
lives. The book shows how women have been surveilled, disciplined,
managed, corrected and punished, and it considers the feminist
strategies that have been used to address the impact of
imprisonment and to draw attention to the systemic abuses against
poor and racialized women. In addition to updating material in the
introductions and substantive chapters, this second edition
includes new contributions that consider the media representations
of missing and murdered women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the
gendered impact of video surveillance technologies (cctv), the role
of therapeutic interventions in the death of Ashley Smith, the
progressive potential of the Inside/Out Prison Exchange Program and
the use of music and video as decolonizing strategies.
Published some two decades ago, Elizabeth Comack's Women in Trouble
explored the connections between the women's abuse histories and
their law violations as well as their experience of imprisonment in
an aged facility. What has changed for incarcerated women in those
twenty years? Are experiences of abuse continuing to have an impact
on the lives of criminalized women? How do women find the
experience of imprisonment in a new facility? Drawing on the
stories of forty-two incarcerated women, Coming Back to Jail
broadens the focus to examine the role of trauma in the women's
lives. Resisting the popular move to understand trauma in
psychiatric terms - as post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) - the
book frames trauma as "lived experience" and locates the women's
lives within the context of a settler-colonial, capitalist,
patriarchal society. Doing so enables a better appreciation of the
social conditions that produce trauma and the problems, conflicts
and dilemmas that bring women into the criminal justice net. In
Coming Back to Jail, Comack shows how - despite recent moves to be
more "gender responsive" - the prisoning of women is ultimately
more punishing than empowering. What is more, because the sources
of the women's trauma reside in the systemic processes that have
contoured their lives and their communities, true healing will
require changing women's social circumstances on the outside so
they no longer keep coming back to jail.
Moving between the spaces of the outside community and prison--"out
there" and "in here"--this study explores the complicated
connections between masculinity and violence in the lives of men
incarcerated at a provincial prison. The discussion traces the
men's lives and highlights their understanding of their own
violence, while looking at the ways in which prison perpetuates the
violence inherent in dominant masculinity. By revealing the voices
of the jailed men, this analysis is able to show that prison is a
gendered space that is not a solution to the public's concerns
about crime and violence. Rather, it is a place in which masculine
pressures encourage marginalized men to take part in aggression,
dominance, and the exercise of brute power as legitimate social
practices.
Policing is a controversial subject, generating considerable
debate. One issue of concern has been "racial profiling" by police,
that is, the alleged practice of targeting individuals and groups
on the basis of "race." Racialized Policing argues that the debate
has been limited by its individualized frame. As well, the concen-
tration on police relations with people of colour means that
Aboriginal people's encounters with police receive far less
scrutiny. Going beyond the interpersonal level and broadening our
gaze to explore how race and racism play out in institutional
practices and systemic processes, this book exposes the ways in
which policing is racialized. Situating the police in their role as
"reproducers of order," Elizabeth Comack draws on the historical
record and contemporary cases of Aboriginal-police relations -- the
shooting of J.J. Harper by a Winnipeg police officer in 1988, the
"Starlight Tours" in Saskatoon, and the shooting of Matthew Dumas
by a Winnipeg police officer in 2005 -- as well as interviews
conducted with Aboriginal people in Winnipeg's inner-city
communities to explore how race and racism inform the routine
practices of police officers and define the cultural frames of
reference that officers adopt in their encounters with Aboriginal
people. In short, having defined Aboriginal people as
"troublesome," police respond with troublesome practices of their
own. Arguing that resolution requires a fundamental transformation
in the structure and organization of policing, Racialized Policing
makes suggestions for re-framing the role of police and the "order"
they reproduce.
With the advent of Aboriginal street gangs such as Indian Posse,
Manitoba Warriors, and Native Syndicate, Winnipeg garnered a
reputation as the "gang capital of Canada." Yet beyond the
stereotypes of outsiders, little is known about these street gangs
and the factors and conditions that have produced them. "Indians
Wear Red" locates Aboriginal street gangs in the context of the
racialized poverty that has become entrenched in the colonized
space of Winnipeg's North End. Drawing upon extensive interviews
with Aboriginal street gang members as well as with Aboriginal
women and elders, the authors develop an understanding from
"inside" the inner city and through the voices of Aboriginal people
- especially street gang members themselves. While economic
restructuring and neo-liberal state responses can account for the
global proliferation of street gangs, the authors argue that
colonialism is a crucial factor in the Canadian context,
particularly in western Canadian urban centres. Young Aboriginal
people have resisted their social and economic exclusion by acting
collectively as "Indians." But just as colonialism is destructive,
so too are street gang activities, including the illegal trade in
drugs. Solutions lie not in "quick fixes" or "getting tough on
crime" but in decolonization: re-connecting Aboriginal people with
their cultures and building communities in which they can safely
live and work.
This book addresses two areas of feminist scholarship--the
recognition of violence against women and the endeavor to make
visible the lives of women in prison. Beginning with personal
accounts of trouble with the law and using a combination of
socialist and standpoint feminism, the collection presents the
stories of 24 incarcerated women.
" This book is the best available for teaching the role of law in
society and making sense of how it operates within the
(inter)connections of race, class and gender dynamics often
perpetuating oppression. Locating Law is essential for
undergraduate students in justice, sociology and criminology.
Margot Hurlbert, University of Regina Students regularly tell me
that Locating Law is their favourite book out of the selections for
the Law and Society course. The case studies are sufficiently
different from one another that the students deepen their general
knowledge, and they appreciate the fact that the chapters are
written in a style they can understand. Jennifer Jarman, Lakehead
University A primary concern within the study of law has been to
understand the law-society relation. Underlying this concern is the
belief that law has a distinctly social basis; it both shapes and
is shaped by the society in which it operates. This book explores
the law-society relation by locating law within the nexus of
race/class/gender/sexuality relations in society. In addition to
updating the material in the theoretical and substantive chapters,
this third edition of Locating Law includes three new
contributions: sentencing law and Aboriginal peoples; corporations
and the law; and obscenity and indecency legislation. The analyses
offered in the book are sure to generate discussion and debate and,
in the process, enhance our understanding of law s location. "
The tension between traditionalist legal theories that maintain
that the law dispenses justice in an impartial fashion and critical
theories that maintain that the law reproduces gender, race, and
class inequalities provides a context for this investigation into
law's complicity in perpetuating disparities. Police reports,
prosecuting lawyer reports, memos, interviews with defense lawyers,
sentencing reports, and other primary sources from Canadian violent
crime cases illustrate the prejudicial strategies used in
litigation. Linguistic nuances that describe a neighborhood
celebration as a "birthday party" or a "drinking binge" are among
the ways stereotypes are perpetuated. This analysis raises
questions about how the law can be applied to realize a more just
society.
One primary concern within the study of law has been to understand
the law/society relation. Underlying this concern is the belief
that law has a distinctly social basis; it both shapes and is
shaped by the society in which it operates. This book explores the
law/society relation by locating law within the nexus of
race/class/gender/sexuality relations in society. Recognizing that
inequalities along these lines exist in society raises important
questions: What role has law historically played in generating
today's inequalities? Is law part of the problem or part of the
solution? Can we use law as a strategy to achieve meaningful
change? The essays in this new edition of Locating Law demonstrate
law's role in a variety of specific contexts, including
perpetuating colonialism in Canada, protecting corporations and
holding women responsible for sexual violence against them. These
analyses are sure to generate discussion and debate and, in the
process, enhance our understanding of this important relation
between law and society.
|
|