UNDER THESE CONDITIONS Gender, Parole and ...

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BRIT. J. CRIMINOL. (2009) 49, 532–551 Advance Access publication 21 April 2009

UNDER THESE CONDITIONS Gender, Parole and the Governance of Reintegration Sarah Turnbull and Kelly Hannah-Moffat*

Introduction Transitions from prison to community are challenging for many women prisoners. Correctional institutions are a unique type of space that is carefully planned, ordered and managed. Whereas prisoners’ lives are largely over-determined in these highly regulated environments, communities are relatively ‘free’ spaces in which women prisoners must demonstrate their ability to be self-managed as they reintegrate into society. Parole is one strategy for governing this transition, and the special conditions attached to parole release facilitate re-entry by targeting the behaviours, activities, associations and spaces connected to the gendered risk to reoffend. This paper examines the penal technique of applying parole conditions to female offenders and how conditions are used to produce normative, selfgoverning subjects. Scholarship on women and reintegration documents numerous barriers to re-entry, including finding housing and employment, obtaining health care and/or social assistance, reuniting with children and families, managing addictions and dealing with the stigma of their criminalized status (see Shaw et al. 1991; Dodge and Pogrebin 2001; Harm and Phillips 2001; O’Brien 2001; Richie 2001; Severance 2004; Maidment 2006). This literature clarifies many impediments to re-entry, but has largely ignored how penal techniques are used to govern women and extend the carceral gaze upon

*Sarah Turnbull, Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, 14 Queen’s Park Crescent West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3K9; [email protected]. Kelly Hannah-Moffat, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto Mississauga, South Building, Room 2097, 3359 Mississauga Road North, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, L5L 1C6; [email protected].

532 © The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]

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Despite the widespread use of conditions in various phases of the criminal justice system (e.g. bail, probation, parole), there has been little theoretical examination of their purposes or the implications associated with their use. This paper extends the theoretical discussion of women prisoners’ reintegration by focusing on parole conditions as a form of ‘targeted governance’. Using national data on federally sentenced female offenders in Canada, it shows how parole boards constitute the female parolee as a fractured subject consisting of various ‘risk/need factors’ to which parole conditions are applied. It also considers how conditions are techniques of targeted governance that exemplify an integrated exercise of penal power, which is simultaneously productive and repressive: conditions help prepare women prisoners for ‘freedom’ on parole by mobilizing particular techniques of self-governance, while at the same time operate as modes of surveillance that police the boundaries of acceptable conduct.

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release. Despite the widespread use of conditions in various phases of the criminal justice system, their purposes and the implications associated with their use remain under-theorized. Most of the literature is written by, and for, practitioners. It tends to focus on bettering the supervision of conditions and enforcement techniques (see Adair 1995; Gowen 2001; Kelly 2001) and on improving offender compliance with special conditions (Taxman and Cherkos 1995). A small body of work considers the difficulties experienced by women under conditions in their communities (Shaw et al. 1991; Maidment 2006; Pollack 2007; 2008b) and whether conditions meet the distinct needs of female offenders (Mullany 2002). Our paper extends the theoretical discussion of women’s reintegration by focusing on parole conditions as a form of ‘targeted governance’ (Valverde 2003; Valverde and Mopas 2004). In particular, we are interested in how the female paroled subject is constituted within parole decision narratives and governed through her release conditions. As penal techniques of risk governance, parole conditions manage parolees’ risk of reoffending by ‘targeting’ various ‘risk/need factors’, such as addictions, bad attitudes, risky associations, mobility and poor decision-making skills. According to Valverde and Mopas (2004: 245), the practice of targeting is ‘linked to the idea of efficient, apolitical, knowledge-driven, “evidence-based” policy’. In this sense, targeted governance is a more modest approach to governing than that typically associated with penal welfarism (Garland 2001). In the context of Canadian federal parole, each condition must relate to a clearly defined criminogenic ‘need’ and only parolees exhibiting that need are subject to the condition designed to regulate it. Thus, rather than applying conditions indiscriminately to all parolees, parole boards target specific risk factors within each individual. Conditions are applied to parole releases for undeniably practical reasons; their widespread use in the criminal justice system attests to their appeal both to ‘commonsense’ and to practical aspects of day-to-day criminal justice operations. Nonetheless, it is important to consider how parole conditions are regulatory techniques that embody both productive and repressive forms of power (Hörnqvist 2007); they help prepare women prisoners for ‘freedom’ by mobilizing particular techniques of self-governance, while simultaneously operating as modes of surveillance that police the boundaries of acceptable conduct. Conditions reinforce normative assumptions about women parolees and the kind of lives they should lead. On the surface, they are meant to manage women’s risk to reoffend; yet, they are also a ‘means of creating accountable and thus governable and obedient citizens’ (Bosworth 2006: 68). Our interest here is in official conceptualizations of the paroled subject as ‘susceptible to crime’ and ‘unprepared to self-govern’ due to personal deficits (i.e. ‘criminogenic needs’ including low self-esteem, dependency, histories of trauma/abuse, poor decisionmaking skills and addiction), and how parole boards use the targeted technique of parole conditions to guide women while making them responsible for remedying these issues and developing (highly normative) prosocial lifestyles. As this paper will show, women eligible for, and granted, parole must demonstrate ‘responsibility’ and a general capacity for self-governance, cooperate with correctional efforts to reintegrate and reform (i.e. normalize) them, and understand themselves within gendered institutional narratives of risk, responsibility and self-change (Bosworth 2006; Pollack 2008a).

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Data and Methods

Parole in the Canadian Context Since 1992, with the enactment of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the federal system of parole in Canada has shifted its raison d’être from rehabilitation to 1 In Canada, prisoners serving a sentence of greater than two years are under federal jurisdiction, whereas those serving under two years are under provincial jurisdiction. 2 The Corrections and Conditional Release Act requires offenders to be considered for some type of conditional release during their sentence of imprisonment. Eligibility for parole varies, depending upon the type of release (day or full) and length of sentence. Typically, offenders are eligible for full parole after serving one-third of their sentence. To reach a release decision, board members conduct an assessment of the offender’s criminal and social history, institutional behaviour and community release plan to determine whether s/he constitutes an ‘undue risk to society’.

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Our analysis draws on national data for the total population of federally sentenced1 female prisoners in Canada who were eligible2 for parole in 2000–01. We used data extracted from the National Parole Board’s (NPB) decision registry to determine the number, type and rationale for parole conditions. This registry provides a detailed justification of the NPB’s initial pre-release decisions (grants or denies) and all subsequent post-release decisions and conduct (e.g. breaches, suspensions, revocations, requests for changes in release conditions and responses to new offences). Our data include documentation on the official outcome of the hearing, the rationales for the decision and application of special conditions, the factors believed to contribute to the offence(s) for which the prisoner was convicted and areas of risk/need. When a prisoner is granted parole, the board details the conditions of her release (i.e. abstain from alcohol, follow treatment plan, avoid certain people, etc.) and provides a separate rationale for the application of each condition that draws on the information detailed in the body of the decision rationale and on board members’ knowledge of her institutional file. In accordance with NPB policy, the rationale for applying special conditions must be clearly stated along with the board’s expectation of the offender while on conditional release (NPB Policy Manual 2008: 7.1–4). We analysed the parole decision data for each female prisoner in the sample (n = 243) and recorded the presence or absence of conditions. This yielded 180 paroled women with conditions. Each researcher independently reviewed each of the 180 parole decision narratives focusing on the board’s rationale for applying conditions. We noted how conditions were discussed and used by the NPB to structure and regulate women’s reintegration, organizing and managing the data using QSR NVivo. Four themes emerged as prominent justifications for the use of conditions: breaking the cycle of crime; consumption; associates; and problematic spaces. Each theme captures the myriad ways through which paroled women’s risk is constituted and governed. Our data also point to the production of what we term ‘the paroled subject’, upon whom conditions are applied to govern reintegration. These narratives create and act upon a dual subjectivity: the paroled subject as both ‘at risk’ and ‘risky’; responsible and irresponsible; autonomous to make choices and dependent. The following sections outline the institutional rationale for conditions and how parole decision narratives constitute the paroled subject as a target of governance and reform. We then present our thematic analysis of how parole conditions operate as techniques of targeted risk governance.

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Producing the Paroled Subject According to Pollack (2008a), the institutional narratives of corrections and parole frame criminalized women in ways that reflect the ideological orientations of these institutions. Notions of risk permeate institutional narratives and constitute women’s subjectivities along various lines of risk: ‘high risk’, ‘risky’ or ‘at risk’. These assessments are largely top-down evaluations of a woman’s risk based on expert discourses, rather 535

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managing risk. Although parole still assists with prisoner reintegration, it is primarily oriented towards ensuring public safety through techniques of surveillance and risk management (Hannah-Moffat 2004b). In this context, parolees’ avoidance of ‘risky’ situations, people and spaces is an important risk reduction strategy (Cullen et al. 2002). Parole conditions play an essential role in this strategy by specifying what parolees’ need to avoid and by requiring some to participate in correctional programming within their communities or through residency requirements (i.e. living at halfway houses). Common conditions that can be applied to a prisoner’s parole release include avoiding certain people and places, residing at a particular place, abstaining from drugs, alcohol or all intoxicants, and attending treatment programmes or counselling. The NPB, often under advisement from the Correctional Service of Canada, determines which conditions will be attached to a prisoner’s parole release, and is also responsible for removing, adjusting or adding conditions post-release. NPB members may apply any condition deemed ‘reasonable and necessary for the protection of society and facilitating the successful reintegration into society of the offender’ (NPB Policy Manual 2008: 2.1–9). NPB policy states that parole conditions should be targeted toward specific risks for reoffending, complied with by the parolee, and monitored and enforced by the parole officer. When applying parole conditions, board members are expected to be cognizant of, and sensitive to, prisoners’ needs and circumstances as women, Aboriginal peoples and/or members of other cultural groups (NPB Policy Manual 2008: 7.1–1). In this sense, conditions are purportedly tailored to reflect each parolee’s background and ‘needs’ as identified in her institutional case file. Any violation of a parole condition ‘is considered to be indicative that the risk is becoming unacceptable and should result in immediate intervention by the supervising authority’ (NPB Policy Manual 2008: 7.1–3). Although the application of special conditions has a compelling practical logic, as a form of targeted governance, it focuses on the various ‘risks’ or ‘deficits’ ascribed to paroled women as a way to both remedy and monitor them. The female parolee is constituted as a fractured subject composed of various ‘risk/need factors’ linked to criminal offending. Parole conditions are a regulatory technique with multiple functions that reflect the dual concern of assistance and surveillance. They address the causes of crime (i.e. by helping paroled women avoid their ‘triggers’ and become ‘better’ citizens) and deter future offending by policing behaviours and activities, and by promising a significant consequence if they are breached—parolees may be returned to prison to serve their sentences. Yet, conditions are also productive forms of risk management and targeted governance that aim to activate women’s capacity to change into responsibilized, self-governing penal subjects. As we show below, decision narratives constitute the paroled subject and her ‘risk’ in gendered and normative ways, justifying the application of special conditions to govern her release from prison.

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than her self-identified needs or experiences (Hannah-Moffat 2004a; 2008; Pollack 2008a). Risk combines with other neoliberal regulatory strategies and gendered, racialized and classed discourses that privilege self-sufficiency, responsibility and empowerment as essential characteristics of ‘good citizenship’ (Hannah-Moffat 2000; Rose 2000; Bosworth 2006; Pollack 2008a). In particular, the dominant penal mantra that ‘crime is a choice’ (Fortin 2004: 5) positions ‘prosocial choices’ as a necessary means of exercising one’s ‘freedom’ (Rose 1999) and demonstrating the capacity for responsible self-governance. The parole decision narratives analysed in this study illustrate how risk thinking constitutes a gendered penal subject. Knowledges of risk are involved in ‘making up people’ (Hacking 1990: 3) or what Foucault (1980: 97) has termed the ‘constitution of subjects’. These knowledges produce particular subjectivities for paroled women as targets of gendered regulation and reform. Through the decision narratives, the paroled subject is variously positioned as a victim, a follower, a recovering addict, someone who lacks sufficient impulse control and makes poor choices, and/or someone who suffers from low self-esteem. Her lawbreaking is understood not in relation to larger social and material conditions, but as a consequence of her personal failures, which are considered to be her gendered ‘risk factors’. The decision narratives describe what is needed to help the paroled subject to manage her risks and reintegrate into the community. Our analysis of these narratives reveals that ‘bad choices’ and ‘pliability’ are constituted as key characteristics of the paroled subject, and are thus targeted as risks that she must overcome in order to be a responsible, self-governing citizen. As a technique of risk governance, parole conditions act upon these understandings of the penal subject to (1) direct paroled women to come to know themselves in ways that are aligned with the framing of their feminine subjectivities as risky and vulnerable, and (2) structure and prescribe a narrow range of ‘prosocial choices’. The narrative of choice figures prominently in many of the decision rationales. Parole conditions were often imposed to prevent women from repeating ‘poor choices’ they had made in the past. This is perhaps unsurprising, given the prevailing view of crime as a choice and of the paroled subject as essentially unreliable until she exhibits sufficient competence to make ‘prosocial choices’. Our analysis shows that women’s criminal histories were used as evidence of bad choices. One decision rationale notes that a woman’s ‘criminal history discloses a persistent pattern of poor decision making and of negative influence from criminal associates’ (7330, emphasis added). In order to reduce this ‘risk’, she was directed to ‘avoid criminally oriented individuals and receive treatment and counseling to address deficits and promote successful re-integration’ (7330). Another woman was given a counselling condition in order to ‘improve [her] decision making abilities [as it] appears warranted given the poor choices [she has] made to date and reflected on [her] lengthy FPS [criminal record]’ (805). For these women, the pattern of bad choices is characterized as a deficit that can be managed through parole conditions that ostensibly address the attitudinal and psychological factors that influence ‘choice’ and improve paroled women’s reliability. These conditions therefore function as a regulatory technique to structure ‘choice’ according to the normative value system of the correctional authorities. The capacity for self-governance is portrayed as an acquired trait that paroled women have yet to demonstrate to the parole boards. The theme of pliability also emerged from the parole decision narratives as an integral aspect of the paroled subject’s character and a source of her risk. She is constituted as

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3 This, of course, does not negate the fact that women also create for themselves particular narratives that make them ‘paroleable’ in the minds of parole board members in the first place. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this insight.

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non-assertive, lacking self-esteem and easily influenced by others (e.g. male co-accused and other criminal associates) and various licit and illicit substances. Her ‘choice’ of associates must be strictly controlled via conditions until she can demonstrate to the board that she will no longer be ‘unduly influenced by negative associates’ (7260) or until she ceases to be ‘an influenced person’ (7935). Similarly, she must show that she has overcome her ‘need to be liked by others’ and past experience of being ‘easily led’ (1340) through her conduct in her community. One paroled woman’s attraction to ‘easy gain’ and her ‘lax value system’ (1720) made her overly pliable in the hands of her ‘criminal peers’. Here, susceptibility to crime is due to facets of paroled women’s character that have made them unassertive and dependent on others. However, the paroled subject is not simply cast as a passive victim—her susceptibility to crime is constituted as a character flaw (and thus a risk factor), as is her tendency to be dependent. Despite this weakness, the paroled subject is expected to overcome her deficits and make prudent choices (as defined by conditions) in order to be successful on parole. The underlying assumption is that if the paroled subject was more independent and selfregulating, she would be less influenced by criminal others and the effects of substances, and consequently less likely to break the law. The quotations presented here reinforce gendered assumptions about women’s ‘dependency’ and its connection to deviant behaviour and ‘poor choices’ (McCorkel 2004; Warner and Gabe 2008). Autonomy is simultaneously and dichotomously framed as a necessary feature of women’s crime-free selves and lives and as requiring external regulation and disciplinary coercion. The constitution of the paroled subject as susceptible to crime due to bad choices and pliability justifies the application of targeted parole conditions. Parole boards use the resulting ‘regulated freedom’ to test women’s capacity for change and self-governance. They govern the reintegration process by structuring decisions and directing choices, albeit through the threat of parole suspension or revocation. As Hörnqvist (2007) has shown, correctional strategies like parole embody forms of productive power that mobilize technologies of the self, such as voluntary participation, responsibility and empowerment, while simultaneously exercising opposing forms of power, such as coercion, surveillance and the imposition of penal objectives. Here, the exercise of seemingly contradictory forms of power produces normative subjectivities for paroled women. For instance, parolees, like prisoners, are expected (and compelled through surveillance and the threat of sanctions) to participate in programmes and demonstrate particular (gendered) forms of conduct; yet, they are also ascribed autonomy because they are ‘partially free’ and able to choose to act in a certain manner. Our data illustrate how, in one instance, the paroled subject is recognized and expected to be independent, self-regulating and willing to change, but is also constituted as requiring close monitoring and direction on how to make the necessary changes and choices. Thus, parole conditions are a technique of discipline and self-governance within an integrated exercise of penal power that is simultaneously responsibilizing and de-responsibilizing. As noted, paroled women are expected to know themselves in ways that are aligned with the parole decision narratives’ framing of their feminine subjectivities as risky and vulnerable.3 Through her release on parole, the paroled subject must prove she is

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capable of exercising reason—that is, assessing her options and rationally selecting the best among them (Bosworth 2006)—and taking responsibility for ‘her life as if it were an outcome of acts of choice’ (Rose 2003: 430). Thus, if a paroled woman uses drugs, resulting in a positive urine test, or engages in prostitution, resulting in a new criminal offence, these ‘choices’ are indicative of her failure at responsible self-governance and suggest to the board that she may be a poor candidate for parole. Parole Conditions and Targeted Regulation

Governing through awareness: breaking patterns of behaviour Upon release, the paroled subject is expected to have developed some insight into her offending, know her criminogenic factors and have attended programmes designed to reduce her risk. She should be aware of the patterns that led to her criminal offending and be willing to institute change in her life. However, the paroled subject still remains a risk to be managed in the community. She is viewed not so much in terms of danger to others, but as susceptible to relapse and continuing on a negative path. Consequently, conditions are rationalized based on the NPB’s understanding of the (gendered) causes of crime (i.e. ‘bad choices’ and lack of agency), individual women’s ‘triggers’ (e.g. drugs, associates, etc.) and what paroled women need to ‘break the crime cycle’. As previous research has shown (see Hannah-Moffat 2004b; Pollack 2008a; 2008b), institutional knowledges of women’s lawbreaking and ‘risk’ perpetuate normative assumptions of femininity and generally treat women’s problems as moral and psychological deficits that can be addressed through therapeutic interventions. 538

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The previous section argued that parole conditions can be seen as techniques of targeted risk governance that act upon official characterizations of the female parolee as susceptible to crime due to bad choices and pliability. Women parolees are also constituted as fractured subjects composed of various ‘risk/need factors’ (e.g. substance abuse, bad relationships, emotional/personal issues, etc.). Instead of imposing blanket prohibitions or generalized correctional programming on paroled women, parole boards undertake individualized assessments of women’s ‘needs’ and apply conditions that target these deficits as a means to correct and manage them. This targeted approach to regulating women’s conduct is premised on a logic of governance that is more rational, cost-efficient and modest in its efforts to address social problems. Parole conditions, much like other ‘magic bullets’ such as Prozac (Rose 2003) or targeted policing (Valverde and Mopas 2004), are tailored to address specific problem areas in order to minimize ‘collateral damage’ (i.e. wasted resources) (see Maurutto and Hannah-Moffat 2006). Our analysis suggests that parolees’ reintegration involves a process of obtaining the correctional authorities’ trust and demonstrating reform by making ‘prosocial choices’— the necessary steps to becoming a responsible, self-sufficient citizen. Parolees must exercise prudence and restraint, forego any gratification or benefit gained through crime, and demonstrate their compliance with conditions regulating their reintegration. As noted earlier, our analysis revealed four themes with respect to the targeting of conditions toward specific risk/need factors: breaking the cycle of crime; consumption; associates; and problematic spaces. Below, we show how targeted conditions are used to govern paroled women in multiple and often contradictory ways.

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As techniques of targeted regulation, parole conditions apply the idea that patterns of behaviour can be broken and the ‘root causes’ of offending can be addressed while on conditional release. The special conditions applied to women’s release purportedly target the ‘causes of [their] criminality’ (0370) in an attempt to make them aware of their deficiencies and appeal to their (presumed) motivation to change. The parole decision narratives suggest that it is in women’s own self-interest to know the ‘root causes’ of their criminal behaviour and ‘triggers’, which will ostensibly help them make the necessary changes to be law-abiding and obedient parolees (Bosworth 2006). As one decision rationale notes:

This woman’s lack of awareness is named as responsible for her criminal offending, and the requirement for counselling is targeted to address this issue. The paroled subject’s awareness of her problems is a necessary step in the cultivation of an independent, rational self. The board’s assumptions about women’s law-breaking are used to rationalize the application of special conditions designed to target these deficits. Thus, conditions attempt to govern through awareness by showing paroled women what they need to do to become normative, law-abiding citizens. Despite viewing paroled women as susceptible to crime, parole boards also attribute considerable agency to them, placing on them the responsibility to change and adopt new lifestyles. Paroled women are not fully bound to their pasts or ascribed a victim status; nor are they viewed as traumatized by their histories to the point of apathy or inaction. Evidence of change, or the capacity to change, is critical to the decision to grant parole and to the application of conditions, which are meant to solidify change and to ensure that women continue to make progress in their communities. Consequently, parole conditions also function to ensure continued participation (and anticipated improvement) in the paroled subject’s rehabilitation as a way to ‘break the cycle’: Given your negative associates and your need at 20 years of age to follow the crowd and be overly influenced …, a special condition to reside at a CBRF [community-based residential facility] for four months on full parole is viewed as reasonable and necessary. This residency will permit your participation in interventions to deal with various personal/emotional issues and to help you distance yourself from a criminal subculture. (0465, emphasis added)

This narrative and the residency and association conditions given to this woman are linked to the board’s perception of her as ‘at risk’ and an immature follower who needs to sever negative relationships and make better choices in order to remain crime-free. In this way, parole conditions allow for therapeutic interventions that target the causes of women’s crime as identified by the parole board. Paroled women must also prove to the board, through their parole release, that they are capable of exercising their (limited) freedom in a responsible, self-sufficient manner. The decision rationales contain gendered narratives about crime, choice and responsibility that paroled women are expected to understand and internalize as essential to their processes of reform. Conditions are thus used to help paroled women develop prosocial lifestyles. For instance, women’s ‘personal/emotional problems stemming from childhood abuse issues’ (1355), ‘lack of boundaries’ and ‘self-esteem’ 539

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Your lack of insight into your co-dependency issues and relationship choices are directly linked to your criminal behaviour. A condition for psychological counseling is reasonable and necessary to manage your risk and to assist with your reintegration as a law-abiding citizen. (1405, emphasis added)

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Monitoring risk and activating self-governance: surveillance and consumption Consumption of licit and illicit substances is a behaviour that emerges as especially problematic within the parole decision narratives. Drug and alcohol use is consistently linked to criminal activity and identified as a barrier to rehabilitation and accepting responsibility for past and future behaviour. Conditions to abstain from alcohol, drugs or all intoxicants as a way to manage risk were common. Although no women in our sample were explicitly required to take prescription medicine, some were given a condition for psychiatric counselling to monitor their consumption of psychotropics. As a targeted technique of regulation, conditions do not promote the reduction of harms associated with drug use, but demand complete abstinence. Those who are given abstain conditions are constituted as unable to consume certain substances in a responsible manner. Instead, consumption is assumed to lead to reoffending and only strict abstinence is associated with prosocial values and lifestyles. Paroled women are sometimes given conditions requiring them to attend alcohol and/or drug treatment programmes to deal with the ‘root causes’ of these behaviours, such as trauma related to previous victimization. The following excerpts are typical reasons for abstain conditions cited within the parole decision narratives: In view of the direct relationship between substance abuse and your criminal history, the board considers it imperative that you abstain from using either drugs or alcohol. You will also require further programming in the community in order to help you maintain abstinence. (7735) Alcohol abuse has been a contributor to your current and previous criminal behavior and has led also to medical difficulties and emotional instability. For these reasons, the special condition is seen as reasonable and necessary to assist in the management of risk and to promote your rehabilitation. (3000)

Within these excerpts, the substances themselves are ascribed influential powers. It is as if the substance takes on a ‘life of its own’ (Reith 2004: 268). The use (and abuse) of intoxicants increases paroled women’s susceptibility to crime and reoffending as it ‘impair[s] the ability to make oneself and one’s risks calculable’ (Moore and Valverde 2000: 517). In other words, the paroled subject cannot effectively self-govern and make rational choices if she is using drugs, alcohol or other substances. 540

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issues (8275) are targeted with psychological counselling and abstinence from drugs and alcohol. Parole conditions also help women avoid the risks of the sex trade or drug and gang ‘cultures’ through prohibitions on social interactions with ‘criminal peers’. Conditions govern women through their awareness of their deficiencies—whether they are ‘personal/emotional problems’, ‘co-dependency issues’, bad ‘relationship choices’ or ‘lack of boundaries’—and structure a set of actions that must be undertaken to create improved, crime-free selves. In pursuit of personal transformation, the paroled subject is expected to choose to obey her conditions. Our data therefore suggest that parole conditions embody a form of productive power that aims to govern individuals through their freedoms and aspirations, rather than in spite of them (Rose 1999). Power is productive because it appeals to paroled women’s self-interests and mobilizes the common goal to remain out of prison.

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Regulating through relationships: associates and the slippery slope Associates are also framed as a source of risk for women on parole and certain associations are regulated through the application of conditions. The typical non-association condition requires parolees to ‘refrain from meeting or communicating with any person whom [they] know to have a criminal record or for whom [they] have reason to believe that he/she has a criminal record’ (0465), which may include friends, intimate partners and ‘criminally involved’ family members. In some cases, the non-association condition expressly requires the avoidance of ‘known drug users/traffickers’ (0135) or other specified individuals, most often co-accused. Although non-association conditions are applied to both male and female parolees, we contend that these conditions have different implications for women on parole. Recent research (see Hannah-Moffat 2008; Pollack 2008a; 2008b) suggests that women’s relationships are increasingly targeted as sites of gendered regulation and reform. The incorporation of ‘relational theory’ into Canadian penal policy (e.g. Fortin 2004) places greater emphasis on criminalized women’s intimate and familial relationships as both ‘protective factors’ and ‘criminogenic risks’. In other words, women’s relationships are being re-examined and recast according to gendered risk knowledges that utilize normative understandings of ‘functional relationships’ (i.e. heterosexual, monogamous, cohabitating), which are juxtaposed to 541

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The prohibition of both licit and illicit substance use for certain women is framed as central to ‘recovery and rehabilitation’ (0860). This condition can also be effectively monitored and policed through drug testing. Yet, parole conditions that ban substance use, regulate consumption and require compliance with random testing reach beyond the prohibition or supervision of addictions. Similar to requiring monitoring of a parolee’s prescribed psychotropic medications, these conditions are intrusive and comprehensive because they facilitate incursions into, and subjection of, the paroled subject’s body (cf. Hyde 1997). Regulating consumption prohibits the paroled subject from choosing to consume certain substances, but can also require her to submit to searches for ‘threatening’ substances that, if ingested, are equated with an increased risk of recidivism. In this sense, the paroled subject and her body are made ‘public’ and justifiably searchable. These conditions limit the expectation of privacy and enhance the regulation of consumptive choices. Moreover, conditions requiring women’s continued use of prescribed psychotropic medications or compliance with urinalyses enable prolonged regulation of the body. These conditions can be situated along a continuum of penal practices that passively and overtly intervene on, and regulate, a criminalized penal subject. As Pollack’s (2008b) research indicates, abstinence conditions are particularly difficult for paroled women to follow in their communities; their violations are the leading cause of women’s return to prison. Ironically, although the board’s objective is to target the causes of crime and addiction through parole conditions, many women are conditionally released into communities with high concentrations of people both using and selling drugs, making avoidance difficult. And while women are encouraged to be ‘honest’ and ‘transparent’ with their parole officers about any ‘lapses’, this can lead to women having their parole suspended or revoked (Pollack 2008b). The subjection of the parolee’s body to urinalyses and other detection technologies further extends the carceral gaze and increases the likelihood of parole violations.

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‘dysfunctional relationships’. These understandings are deployed to assess the criminogenic potential of various relationships and govern women’s associations while they are on parole. The board’s assessment of the paroled subject’s character is also mobilized to justify the application of non-association conditions. Her susceptibility to crime, poor decisionmaking skills, immaturity and deficient value system are attributes that heighten her receptivity to the influences of others and increase her likelihood of being ‘enticed’ back into the criminal ‘lifestyle’ (2010). As such, ‘bad’ associates are viewed as the slippery slope paroled women must negotiate in order manage their reintegration. For instance:

During your release, you are also forbidden from having any contacts with persons with a criminal record or involved with the drug milieu. Such relations have led you to commit the crimes for which you are incarcerated. (1590, emphasis added)

From these excerpts, it appears that mere association with criminalized others is believed to lead back to crime and, as with other conditions discussed above, the wrong choices (in this case of whom to associate with) and paroled women’s lack of autonomy are viewed as root causes of their criminal offending. In addition to the generic non-association condition, the parole board can impose a special condition requiring paroled women to advise their parole officers of their intimate relationships. As one decision rationale states: Clearly your involvement with negative associates is also directly related to the index offence. … You recognize that the stability of your relationships represents a key to avoiding a return to substance abuse. As a result, the board is imposing a condition that you disclose all intimate relationships. (7945, emphasis added)

This quote reflects the extent of the board’s governance and surveillance of women’s relationships and associations. Although this condition was rarely imposed in our sample, it speaks to the extension of the carceral gaze over every aspect of paroled women’s lives. We know from Pollack’s (2007) research that women’s intimate relationships are under a microscope while they are supervised on parole. As Pollack notes, this condition is typically applied to women who have histories of being abused by men, but it is still considered a way to manage the women’s risk. Through this condition, women’s previous experiences of victimization within relationships are reframed as individual risk factors that increase the possibility of future violence and therefore recidivism. As a result, paroled women’s intimate relationships ‘become a gendered site of surveillance and regulation’ (Pollack 2007: 166). Not only is there concern about whom a woman associates with, but the quality and substance of those relationships are scrutinized and assessed. Clearly, the paroled subject’s choice of associates is conceptualized as particularly problematic, given her past history of choosing the ‘wrong’ friends and intimate partners. In this context, paroled women are portrayed as immature followers who need guidance 542

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You will not be allowed to communicate with any person who has a criminal record, who is involved in drug trafficking or part of organized crime because it has been determined that, in the past, you committed your crimes with such peoples or under their influence. In order not to commit a subsequent offence it is imperative that you have no contact with other delinquents. (0505, emphasis added)

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Spatial regulation through mobility and residency conditions The final theme emerging from our analysis is ‘problematic spaces’. Women categorized as having difficulty with substances or gambling may receive special conditions that regulate them spatially in their communities by controlling their movements and where they live. Parole conditions that restrict mobility and require residency in halfway houses as a stipulation of partial freedom are spatial techniques of governance that facilitate the surveillance of women and the production of normative, self-governing citizens by targeting their individual risk/need factors. We next show how spatial regulation is used to govern paroled women and how certain spaces are problematized as criminogenic for these women. In much the same way as the paroled subject is constituted as ‘flawed’ within the decision rationales, so are certain spaces and people. We examine the two primary conditions that regulate paroled women’s mobility and residence: (1) avoid particular places; and (2) reside at a specific place. Techniques of avoidance The aim of the first spatial condition is to limit opportunities for reoffending based on women’s criminal histories: In view of the nature of your index offence, the board is imposing an abstain alcohol condition. We are also imposing a condition that prohibits you from entering bars, taverns, etcetera, due to the fact that some of your drinking on the day of the offence occurred at a drinking establishment. (1460, emphasis added) Given your past lifestyle it is appropriate that you avoid both negative associations and places where you are likely to encounter individuals using alcohol and drugs. (0880)

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(through non-association conditions) on how to make the ‘right’ choices of friends, acquaintances and intimate partners. In effect, paroled women are expected to seek contact with ‘prosocial’ individuals—those ‘ideal’ citizens whose enmeshment in the ‘circuits of work, family, consumption, and community’ (Rose 2002: 216) provide a ‘healthy’ model that paroled women can aspire to become. And, given the emphasis on the importance of relationships for criminalized women (Bloom et al. 2003; Fortin 2004), it is tacitly accepted that paroled women need to surround themselves with positive influences; slipping back into substance use and then crime is more likely when surrounded by people who are accepting of, and/or engaged in, a range of criminalized behaviours. However, in an effort to sever women’s criminalized networks, paroled women are often isolated completely from important sources of support. The non-association condition can lead to feelings of isolation when relationships developed in correctional institutions are not allowed to continue in the community (Severance 2004; Pollack 2008b). Although this condition has practical logic and commonsense appeal, it also constructs barriers to reintegration. The idea that paroled women can ‘start over’ and develop new social networks is simplistic. It ignores the stigmatization that comes with a criminal record, as well as the material conditions confronting many paroled women upon their release. It also negates the effects of racism, colonialism and classism that results in the over-criminalization of particular communities and the increased likelihood that they will be included in the list of people to avoid.

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You would place yourself in a very high risk situation if you were to be in a casino, or where there are VLT’s, and/or in a bingo hall. (1735)

Linked to the official characterization of paroled women as ‘susceptible to crime’ and ‘risky’ is the assumption that if they are in a criminogenic space, they will become criminals again. As a result, gambling and liquor establishments are seen as inappropriate spaces for these women if they want to be law-abiding. The parole narratives note that any ‘slip’ in abstention or entering these establishments could result in a return to crime. To prevent such relapses, the risky spaces themselves must be excluded from the array of legitimate spaces paroled women are allowed to occupy. This spatial mechanism of exclusion is used to dissuade women from drinking, gambling and associating with others who are engaged in these activities by removing the opportunities for such behaviours (Merry 2001). The correct ‘choice’ for paroled women—as dictated by the special condition—is to avoid these criminogenic spaces. As such, the constitution of these establishments as ‘risky’ delegitimizes them as places for leisure, social interaction and even potential employment for these women. Mobility conditions can, and often intend do, separate women from past social networks—particularly those viewed as antithetical to ‘good citizenship’. The contradictory framing of the paroled subject as unprepared for self-governance and yet responsibilized for her reintegration enables the application of conditions that work to spatially regulate parolees through the problematic spaces of their communities. Because of their past behaviours and ‘risk/need factors’, parole boards appear to have little faith in paroled women’s abilities to self-govern in these spaces. Our analysis of the parole decision narratives also suggests that in much the same way as the penal subject is constituted as ‘flawed’ within the decision rationales, so are certain spaces and the people imagined to exist therein. These spaces (i.e. bars, casinos, certain neighbourhoods, etc.) are framed as ‘criminogenic’ when they are thought to possess particular characteristics linked to involvement in criminal activity (Hannah-Moffat 544

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The condition prohibiting attendance in liquor establishments targets the paroled subject’s difficulty with alcohol and potential to be influenced by other users, and governs her using the strategy of avoidance. She must abstain from consuming alcohol and avoid any establishment that serves this substance because she risks slipping back into crime. Albeit a ‘normal’ and pleasurable activity for some, drinking is redefined through parole narratives as risky and counterproductive to paroled women’s reintegration. Occupying spaces such as liquor establishments heightens paroled women’s exposure to the ‘deviant’ activities typically associated with a gendered risk to reoffend. In effect, drinking establishments become criminogenic spaces creating risky situations for women that can result in a violation of other conditions, such as communicating with criminal associates or consuming drugs. Similarly, gambling establishments are considered risky spaces that certain paroled women must avoid. Like liquor establishments, gambling venues, including casinos and bars with video lottery terminals (VLTs), are framed as legitimate for some people, but risky for those with a proclivity towards crime and a lack of control or ‘good’ judgment. According to the parole decision narratives, gambling is linked to the ‘decision to become involved in criminal behaviour’ (0590), and thus the avoidance of gambling establishments is seen as ‘imperative’ to managing risk (0110):

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Under a ‘watchful eye’ The second condition that regulates paroled women’s mobility requires parolees to reside at a specific place. Paroled women who are exiting from highly ordered penal spaces are characterized as needing help to negotiate the unregulated and precarious spaces that lie ‘outside’ the prison walls. Residency conditions that require women to live in community-based residential facilities (CBRFs), or halfway houses, are used to regulate re-entry and extend the penal gaze. Moreover, these conditions continue to externally govern women’s freedom, at least until they demonstrate the capacity for self-governance. The NPB can apply residency conditions to a woman’s parole release that outline where she is to live and for how long. For women who are assessed as being at greater risk of reoffending and/or as unprepared to effectively negotiate the ‘unregulated’ spaces of their communities, halfway houses provide increased structure, surveillance and access to programming. Halfway houses allow women parolees to be ‘effectively removed from [their] high-risk situations as well as insulated from most temptations’ (8145). When halfway houses are not sufficient in managing women’s risk, the prison is the logical backup. Thus, for women deemed in need of greater structure and 4 The relationships between crime and the environment have been studied since the nineteenth century, eventually leading to the establishment of ‘environmental criminology’. Various theories about the ‘geography’ of crime argue that crime is more prevalent in certain spaces because of their social composition in terms of social class, age and ethnicity (see Bottoms 1994 for a review).

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1999).4 Although these spaces are not inherently criminogenic and non-criminalized people can, and do, successfully negotiate them, they are characterized as risky for paroled women; so-called criminogenic ‘spaces are reduced to their propensities for criminal activity, and some spaces are produced as always already criminal’ (Herbert and Brown 2006: 773). As a number of critical geographers have argued, it is important to interrogate how spaces are constituted and to examine the material and symbolic effects of these processes (e.g. Gieryn 2000; Merry 2001; Gallagher and Fusco 2006; Beckett and Herbert 2008). Blomley and Sommers (1999: 265) argue that ‘the ability to constitute space … is a crucial factor in the exercise of governmental power, for it makes possible the regularity which is necessary for the motivation of self-rule’. Although parole decision narratives do not go so far as to demarcate specific neighbourhoods or establishments as spaces that all parolees must avoid, we suggest that the application of special conditions aims to protect paroled women by providing them with knowledge of which spaces to avoid in order to reduce their risk of reoffending. Indeed, ‘certain place meanings are constructed and reproduced through the development of reputations and labels about the area and its residents’ (Sharpe 2000: 425). These associations ‘become part of the practical consciousness and behaviour of social actors’ (Sharpe 2000: 425). The whereabouts of most ‘criminogenic spaces’ are popularly known among residents and public agencies alike. Parole boards and parole officers are attentive to these areas because they represent potential difficulties for offenders re-entering their communities (Cullen et al. 2002). Conditions requiring the avoidance of particular spaces target and spatially regulate the paroled subject’s ‘risk factors’—even though these are often the spaces paroled women come from, and are returned to, once released from prison.

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accountability, halfway houses and prisons are, by default, constituted as ‘suitable’ spaces. The parole narratives represent halfway houses as spaces of risk management that provide paroled women ‘period[s] of high level structure and supervision’ (8310). These spaces allow the paroled subject to gradually establish herself in the community while under supervision. Gradual and supervised release ‘allows for facilitating more independence, establishing a more structured lifestyle’ and ensuring ‘more sensible choices’ (7935). As the following decision narratives reveal, without such support, women’s risk is unmanageable:

You are a high risk to re-offend non-violently and will require the structure and control of a halfway house for an extended period in order to establish credibility to live independently. (3065, emphasis added)

These excerpts highlight two different, albeit interrelated, constructions of space: structured space and supervised space. Each aspect of space aids in the production of certain gendered forms of citizenship and strategies of risk management. Structured space established routines and schedules for the paroled subject, thereby regimenting her time and activities and decreasing her opportunities for reoffending. This residency condition aims to produce ‘good’ gendered subjects who are orderly and responsible for duties such as maintaining work schedules, attending correctional programming, preparing meals, doing chores, looking after children and so forth. The supervised space of a halfway house allows parolees to be monitored and ensures that their risks are properly managed. As spaces of supervision, halfway houses are ostensibly free from ‘temptations’ through technologies of surveillance that aim to produce disciplined, selfgoverning subjects. Thus, through both structure and supervision, the spaces of halfway houses are supposed to inculcate in paroled women the ideals of responsibility and selfsufficiency so that they can learn how to care for themselves (and others) once they move into unstructured and unsupervised spaces. The residency condition is illustrative of the simultaneous exercise of repressive and productive forms of penal power: it expands the carceral gaze into the community as a way to monitor and control, and encourages the production of self-governing, law-abiding citizens. Although curfews are not typically imposed on paroled women through conditions, halfway houses typically require residents to be ‘home’ for ‘the night’ (e.g. 11 pm to 7 am). This structuring of the paroled subject’s time is linked to strategies of risk management that target her deficits and govern her movements in and through space. Paroled women are required to be within the structured and supervised spaces of the halfway house during certain times of the day, ostensibly under the pretence that nighttime is riskier for women than daytime (Pain 1997). Again, normative assumptions about ‘good’ behaviour for women are embedded into this spatio-temporal framing and stipulation of where women ‘belong’ at any particular time of day (Martel 2006). For some women, living successfully in a halfway house gives them the opportunity to ‘prove’ to their parole officers and the parole board that they are capable of negotiating freedom and addressing their risk/need factors. It also lets them demonstrate that they 546

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Your lengthy criminal history and history of breaching various forms of conditional release indicate that you present a high risk to reoffend in the absence of the structure afforded by residency in a halfway house setting. (0880, emphasis added)

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are willing and able to make responsible choices. Moreover, the halfway house allows for the targeting of necessary interventions that ensure ‘proper’ independent living: Given you are viewed by the Board as a high risk to reoffend in a non-violent fashion, your living arrangements are not conducive to prosocial living, and interventions are required in a vary of domains, a special condition to reside at a CBRF for four months on full parole is viewed as reasonable and necessary. This residency will permit your participation in interventions to help deal with various personal/ emotional issues and to help you distance yourself from a criminal subculture. (0465, emphasis added)

Implications and Conclusion: Problematic Silences and the Unspoken Expectations of Reintegration As a penal technique of ‘managing’ reintegration, parole conditions both help and control penal subjects deemed ‘unprepared for self-governance’ upon release from prison by targeting their ‘risk/need factors’ and promoting normative lifestyles. In this sense, parole conditions are a technique of targeted governance that reflects both 547

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This excerpt highlights the normative framing of many women prisoners’ home environments as inherently ‘criminogenic’ and the imperative to ‘distance’ them from risky spaces, activities and ‘criminal subcultures’—particularly domestic ones. It also ensures that they will participate in the necessary rehabilitative programming (typically prescribed by other parole conditions) that continues to work on their deficits. In addition, halfway houses ‘buffer’ paroled women who are unprepared to negotiate the unregulated spaces of their communities and exercise the requisite will power in the face of various temptations. The reasons for residency conditions frame halfway houses as ‘safe’ and ‘orderly’ transitional spaces. In contrast to the apparently risky spaces of the private (and thus unsupervised) home, halfway houses are discursively constituted in the parole decision narratives as effectively managing certain paroled women by keeping them separate from risky spaces, people and activities. However, as the Canadian Human Rights Commission (2003: 55) has reported, much of the accommodation in halfway houses is inappropriate for paroled women: ‘… many female offenders are released to shelters for the homeless, co-ed facilities and halfway houses located in neighbourhoods where they were formerly drug users or sex trade workers.’ Drug use in halfway houses poses problems for women trying to manage their addictions, while the ‘presence of men [in co-ed facilities] can be a distraction at this critical juncture in a woman’s release plan’ (Canadian Human Rights Commission 2003: 55; see also Pollack 2008b). Halfway houses reflect binary assumptions about order and chaos, safety and insecurity, inside and outside (Wardhaugh 1999; Pain 2001), but should be seen as ambiguous spaces that are at once structured/supervised and risky. In keeping with Osborne and Rose’s (1999: 754) argument that security cannot be ‘thought of in absolute terms’, halfway houses may not be able to protect and regulate paroled women through measured prosocial contacts with the outside. Targeted risk governance through spatial separation may not be completely achievable because ‘there can be no inherently safe locales or activities’ (Osborne and Rose 1999: 754). However, the contradictory and ambiguous nature of the halfway house is not raised in the parole decision narratives; instead, the halfway house is starkly juxtaposed to criminogenic and unregulated spaces.

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productive and repressive forms of penal power. From our analysis, the discourse of ‘choice’ pervades the parole decision narratives and, we suggest, informs the parole boards’ expectations of women on parole. Within this framework, paroled women’s choices are structured and regulated through conditions under the assumption that they are not yet prepared for responsible self-governance; yet, they are simultaneously held responsible if they exercise their autonomy to make ‘bad’ choices. The discourse of choice hides the material conditions and histories—poverty, racism, physical and sexual abuse—that frame ‘choice’ (Razack 1998) and structure how and why some women end up in prison and on parole in the first place. It also assumes that all paroled women are able (and willing) to minimize their risk by avoiding various dubious activities, risky friends and no-go spaces upon release from prison. The assumption that paroled women are able to successfully reintegrate into their communities as a function of ‘choice’ ignores the role of social privilege in this process. However, due to a lack of alternatives and the neoliberal erosion of social safety nets, many paroled women return to communities beleaguered by poverty and other forms of structural inequality, including racism, sexism and unemployment (Richie 2001). Poverty and lack of housing can put women back into problematic home environments characterized by abuse (Harm and Phillips 2001). Creating new social networks is also challenging, since paroled women are expected to sever all ties to other criminalized persons (Pollack 2008b). On a practical level, parole conditions often conflict with the demands of everyday life. What is interesting about the parole decision rationales, we argue, is also what is not said about other legitimate behaviours, associations and spaces open to women on parole. This raises questions about the unspoken expectations for reintegration placed upon paroled women by penal authorities. The consistent framing of the paroled subject as ‘deficient’ and dysfunctional and the focus on her inability to effectively cope with ‘freedom’ raises questions as to where women on parole ‘belong’. The decision narratives highlight the need for paroled women to find ‘meaningful’ and ‘prosocial’ relationships, activities and spaces. Yet, they speak largely in terms of ‘avoidance’ and do much to delineate the boundaries around risky people, problematic activities and uninhabitable spaces. Notions about what is (or should be) ‘meaningful’ and ‘prosocial’ for paroled women are based on ‘idealized lifestyles’ that reflect whiteness, heterosexuality, ablebodiedness and middle-class norms. Under the conditions of their release, paroled women are expected to pursue such lifestyles as a way to change themselves and avoid being returned to prison. In particular, such prosocial pursuits appear to be ‘healthy’ homes, places of (legitimate) employment or education and ‘meaningful’ relationships with intimate partners, kids, family and friends. Arguably, these pursuits are considered respectable because they conform to the gendered characteristics of normative citizenship; that is, they relate to notions of domesticity, motherhood, property, self-reliance (through paid employment) and self-improvement. Presumably, these idealized lifestyles will help women ‘break the cycle of crime’, establish prosocial associations, avoid problematic consumption of substances and distance themselves from criminogenic spaces. These lifestyles, however, do not resonate with many paroled women’s experiences and, for some, are not feasible possibilities. Although ‘some women do quite well putting their lives back together when they are released from prison’ (Richie 2001: 370), without access to affordable housing and well paying jobs, it becomes difficult for many paroled women to establish themselves according to the idealized dictates of normative citizenship.

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Funding Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Acknowledgements We wish to thank Linn Clark, Michael Mopas and Mariana Valverde for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. References

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