PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

BROKEN RECORD: THE LEISURE/HEALTH NEXUS IN PRISON

Marcoux Rouleau, A. (2022). Exploring the Leisure - Health Nexus: Pushing Global Boundaries (Eds. H. Maxwell, R. McGrath, N. Peel, J. Young), CAB International, p. 52-66. doi

"As a sociocriminologist studying women’s prisons, I have contended that leisure needs to be rethought as a component of its environment and therefore as subjected to prisons’ functioning and goals (Marcoux Rouleau, 2020). In the following pages, I build on this to argue that despite its many benefits to incarcerated women and people in general, leisure has a limited capacity to fix that which is cracked and broken by the institution itself. Indeed, poverty, homelessness, victimization, and addiction are pathways to poor health and to criminalization, especially among women (Chesnay, 2016, 2017). Incarceration amplifies and creates issues with health and wellbeing, leading critical scholars to conclude that such problems are constitutive of the institution (Robert and Frigon, 2006). I infer that emphasis on leisure as the penultimate answer to poor health in prison does a disservice to incarcerated individuals, who are held accountable for improving their wellbeing while government responsibility is deflected, and discuss what practitioners, scholars, and advocate can do about this."

2 minute video summary here!

LES INITIATIVES DE PRISE EN CHARGE ADAPTÉE DES PREMIÈRES NATIONS ET INUIT JUDICIARISÉS AU CANADA. QUELQUES PISTES DE RÉFLEXION.

Vacheret, M., Quirion, B., Boucher, P., Wylde, C., Plourde, C., & Marcoux Rouleau, A. (2022). Revue Internationale de Criminologie et de Police Technique et Scientifique, 75(1). p. 54-72. doi

"La prise en charge des Autochtones par les autorités judiciaires canadiennes est reconnue comme problématique à divers niveaux notamment en termes de surreprésentation en détention. Basé sur une revue de littérature, cet article propose une analyse des initiatives menées par les autorités correctionnelles et certaines communautés autochtones pour mettre à la disposition des justiciables autochtones des programmes mieux adaptés à leurs réalités et favorisant ainsi leur réintégration sociocommunautaire. Si ces initiatives sont significatives dans le cheminement des Premières Nations et Inuit judiciarisées, plusieurs enjeux et questionnements restent importants à soulever et ce d’autant plus qu’elles ne répondent pas au problème de départ, soit celui de la sur-pénalisation des Autochtones au Canada."

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"The treatment of Indigenous people within the Canadian criminal justice system is problematic in several ways, particularly in terms of over-representation in prison population. Based on a literature review, this article explores the initiatives carried out by correctional services and Indigenous communities to provide programs that are better suited to the realities of criminalized Indigenous people, and that can better contribute to their social reintegration into community. While these initiatives are significant in the progression of First Nations and Inuit who have been criminalized, several issues and questions remain important to raise, especially since they do not address the initial problem, namely the over-penalization of Indigenous people in Canada."

REFORM TO ABOLISH: A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF PRISON LABOR & STRIP SEARCHES IN QUEBEC CORRECTIONAL LAW

Marcoux Rouleau, A. (2021). Lex Electronica, special issue La justice dans tous ses états by Ledy Rivas Zannou & Eve Gaumond (dir.), 26(2), p. 302-333. url ResearchGate

"In the past year, abolitionist themes have been at the forefront of mobilizations such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #FreeThemAll. This paper relies on socio-legal feminist methodology and proposes a pragmatic abolitionist analysis of correctional law, the Loi sur le système correctionnel du Québec (LSCQ). I emphasize two issues reflective of ongoing structural harms within women’s jails – prison labor and strip searches – and argue that both practices instill everyday bodily harms due to their framing in the LSCQ. Although prison labor is presented as favoring social reinsertion, per the LSCQ incarcerated women receive inadequate wages relative to the cost of living in prison thus limiting their access to menstrual products and potentially leading to dangerous alternatives. As for strip searches, they are presented as means to ensure the safety of the institution yet are experienced as unsafe and as state-inflicted sexual assault. Per the LSCQ, strip searches can be conducted in a range of circumstances leaving much to correctional officers’ discretion, thus allowing for discriminatory rule enforcement and exposing incarcerated women of color to further violence. I conclude by presenting short-term abolitionist reforms which could reduce these everyday bodily harms. I also call for increased solidarity with incarcerated people within social mobilizing and organizing."

"Dans la dernière année, des thèmes abolitionnistes ont été au coeur  de mobilisations comme #BlackLivesMatter, #MoiAussi, et #LibérezLesTous. Cet article s’inspire d’une méthodologie sociolégale et féministe pour proposer une analyse pragmatique et abolitionniste de la Loi sur le système correctionnel du Québec (LSCQ). Je présente deux enjeux reflétant des torts structurels perpétués dans les prisons pour femmes – le travail et les fouilles à nu – et soutiens que ces pratiques instillent des torts corporels quotidiens vu leur cadrage au sein de la LSCQ. Bien que le travail en prison soit présenté comme moyen de réinsertion sociale, vu la LSCQ les femmes reçoivent des salaires inadéquats relatifs au coût de vie en prison, ce qui limite l’accès aux produits menstruels et peut mener à des alternatives dangereuses. Pour ce qui est des fouilles à nu, celles-ci sont présentées comme favorisant la sécurité de l’institution mais sont subies comme agressions sexuelles infligées par l’état. La LSCQ prévoit que ces fouilles puissent être conduites dans une variété de circonstances à la discrétion des agents correctionnels, laissant ainsi place à une application discriminatoire des règlements et exposant les femmes racisées à davantage de violences en détention. Je conclus en présentant des réformes abolitionnistes qui pourront réduire ces torts corporels quotidiens à court terme. J’appelle aussi à une solidarisation avec les personnes incarcérées au sein des mouvements sociaux."

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10 minute video summary here!

RETHINKING INCARCERATED WOMEN'S LEISURE AS SUBJECTED TO COERCIVE AND NORMATIVE PRISON MISSIONS

Marcoux Rouleau, A. (2020). Frontiers in sports and active living, 2(58875), 1-8. doi

"Leisure is commonly understood as contributing to well-being; this is especially appealing when considering multiply marginalized populations such as incarcerated women. However, leisure is not impervious to cooptation by less benevolent social processes. In this conceptual analysis, I argue that incarcerated women's leisure must be rethought as a component of its environment and by extension, as subjected to coercive and normative prison missions. After broadly delineating incarcerated women's leisure, I determine that some characteristics of leisure can be compatible with these prison missions. I then examine individual, organizational, and social benefits and issues with leisure in women's prisons. I link these practices to reduced coerciveness and increased normativity. I conclude by suggesting that ensuring incarcerated people's well-being through leisure is not in itself an end, but a means to achieve prison's coercive and normative ends. I discuss implications for scholars, practitioners, and advocates."

1 minute video summary here! Vidéo en Français ici!

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Best publication scholarship winner! Gagnant de la bourse de la meilleure publication au CRDP!

WHOSE CRIMINOLOGY? MARGINALISED PERSPECTIVES AND POPULATIONS WITHIN STUDENT PRODUCTION AT THE MONTREAL SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

Marcoux Rouleau, A., Melouka, I., & Pérusse-Roy, M.

Accepted pending minor revisions.

"This study assumes that departmental and disciplinary tendencies are magnified within criminological student production. We empirically investigate the prevalence of and relationship between marginalised populations and criminological perspectives based on two decades’ worth of thesis and dissertation abstracts published by the Montreal School of Criminology in Québec, Canada (µ=408). Descriptive statistics show the overwhelming prevalence of conventional criminology (72%) compared to studies questioning or discussing alternatives to the status quo. Marginalised populations are considered among a minority of studies. We then examine factors predicting non-conventional perspectives within student production, using a logistic regression model explaining 46% of the variance. Studies considering race, social class, sociological aspects within criminology or resorting to qualitative methods show the strongest likelihood of relying on non-conventional perspectives, whereas studies considering age increase the likelihood of relying on conventional perspectives. In closing we urge criminologists working within all perspectives to meaningfully include and consider how their work impacts marginalised populations."

LESSONS FROM INSIDERS: EMBRACING SUBJECTIVITY AS OBJECTIVITY IN VICTIMOLOGY

Marcoux Rouleau, A. (Under review). doi

"Due to the prevalence of victimization in society, it is likely that many victimologists have been victimized or will be in their lifetimes. This poses a challenge for the field of victimology as traditional, positivist conceptions of ‘good science’ require researchers to be outsiders relative to populations they study. This paper asks: what are the epistemological and practical implications of victimological research conducted by researchers who have firsthand experiences of victimization? What lessons can be retained by other victimologists and researchers in general? How can these epistemological considerations be applied in practice? To answer these questions, I examine the meanings of insider and outsider status and the implications for objectivity and subjectivity per positivist and standpoint epistemologies. I present the case of victimologists who have been victimized as well as advantages and disadvantages of this form of insider research. I deconstruct insider-outsider, subjectivity-objectivity dualisms as pertains to victimologists, concluding that all victimologists can be subjective whether they are technically insiders or not. In closing I discuss how all victimologists can embrace their own and their participants’ subjectivity as a resource for objectivity by examining location, emotions and bodies, and ethics throughout the research process."

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Winner of the American Society of Criminology's Division of Victimology Graduate Student Paper Award!