Illness, incarceration and professional identity: healthy prisons, unhealthy practices and staff-prisoner relations

Session Submission Type: Pre-arranged Panel

Abstract

This panel is made up of four papers, three qualitative and one quantitative, emerging out of a PhD project on women’s open prisons in England, and two ongoing sibling research projects based at the University of Oslo: PRISONHEALTH and PriSUD: Diagnosing substance use disorders in prisons. PRISONHEALTH aims to provide new knowledge about the effects of high-quality prison healthcare services and prisoners’ and prison staff’s experiences of healthcare, asking the overarching question: under what circumstances can prisons be “healthy” or health-promoting institutions? PriSUD in turn examines the implementation of drug treatment in prison, and the potential long-term effects of such on health outcomes and quality of life during and after imprisonment. The PhD project on women’s open prisons in England aims to explore the ‘objective characteristics’ and ‘subjective experiences’ within the institutions. This panel will discuss themes of drug treatment, effects of disruptions in low-security prisons, prison officers’ professional identities, mental health and illness, and solitary confinement.

Subtopic

• Topic 5: Social Control and Criminal Justice / Imprisonment, Prisons, Prison Life and Effects of Imprisonment (Prisons WG)

Chair

• Rose Elizabeth Boyle, University of Oslo

Individual Presentations

• Title: ‘Healthy’ prisons in unhealthy times. How disruptions and austerity influence weight and tightness. - Pernille Nyvoll, University of Oslo

• "Double punishment"? Interlocking logics of punishment and treatment in high-security prisons - Rose Elizabeth Boyle, University of Oslo

• ‘We don’t see ourselves as prison officers here’: Exploring the professional transitions and role of prison officers in women’s open prisons in England and Wales - Daria Przybylska, University of Cambridge