Prison Reform, the Penal Press and Resistance in the Canadian Penitentiary System, 1938-1955

• In Event: Convict Criminology Session 3: Reflections on the Role, Significance and Practice of Prison Writing

Abstract

“That sort of thing has no place in an inmate publication.” These words, spoken by Deputy Commissioner R.E. March in 1955, reflect the tensions produced by the introduction of the penal press in Canadian prisons. This paper re-examines Robert Gaucher's work on the origins and early history of the penal press in Canada. The research, which forms part of a larger project on prison reform and rehabilitation programs in mid-twentieth-century Canada, makes use of two sets of previously neglected sources: the minutes and documents associated with national wardens’ conferences; and the large collection of penal press materials from federal penitentiaries across the country. Read together, these sources provide a window into the attitudes and decision-making processes that characterized the federal penitentiary service bureaucracy; the ways in which policies were implemented, altered, and resisted; and the lived experiences of prisoners who endured, adapted to, and influenced the carceral policies of the era.

Authors

• Chris Clarkson, Okanagan College

• Melissa Munn, Okanagan College