Alex Luscombe

Making Punishment Memorialization Pay? Marketing, Networks, and Souvenirs at Small Penal History Museums in Canada

Existing literature on the commodification of punishment has yet to examine small penal history museums or related issues of tourism marketing, networking, and souvenirs. Bringing this literature into conversation with tourism studies, we examine how penal history sites attempt to attract visitors and generate revenue to sustain their operations. Drawing on findings from a 5-year qualitative study of penal history museums across Canada, we argue tourism operators use three strategies for the marketing of commodified punishment: authenticity, historical specificity, and exclusiveness. Our findings also indicate that networking between these sites is underdeveloped and that the souvenirs sold to visitors are an important source of museum funding. Overall, we show that the concepts of marketing, networking, and souvenirs can comprise a key conceptual framework for examining consumption in small tourism enterprises in Canada and internationally. Our findings also raise questions about how to theorize and investigate museum management, solvency, and profitability in the penal and dark tourism sector.

High policing and access to information

Brodeur’s concept of high policing is now a staple in sociology and criminology. While scholars have added to debates about high policing by focusing on private provision and pluralization, methodological concerns related to high policing remain underdeveloped. Here, we examine the use of access to information (ATI) requests as a methodological tool for producing data on high policing. We argue that despite the utility of ATI for social scientists producing data on policing, the information management practices of policing agencies and the laws that enable their surveillance and intelligence practices curtail ATI in ways that we detail with focus on Canadian federal policing and intelligence agencies. In conclusion, we reflect on the implications of our findings for literature on public policing and ATI.

Criteria for quality in qualitative research and use of freedom of information requests in the social sciences

Access to information (ATI) and freedom of information (FOI) requests are an under-used means of producing data in the social sciences, especially across Canada and the United States. We use literature on criteria for quality in qualitative inquiry to enhance ongoing debates and developments in ATI/FOI research, and to extend literature on quality in qualitative inquiry. We do this by building on Tracy’s (2010) article on criteria for quality in qualitative inquiry, which advances meaningful terms of reference for qualitative researchers to use in improving the quality of their work; and illustrating these criteria using examples of ATI/FOI research from our own work and from others’ in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. We argue that, when systematically designed and conducted, ATI/FOI research can prove extraordinary in all eight of Tracy’s criteria.

Occupy Ottawa, Conservation Officers, and Policing Networks in Canada's Capital City

Les études portant sur le maintien de l’ordre ont ignoré les agents de conservation à cause d’un parti pris pour les agents de police municipaux et publics. Le travail des agents de conservation et des agents de police conventionnels se chevauche de manière non encore explorée. Cet article examine la participation des agents de conservation de la Commission de la capitale nationale (CCN) au sein des réseaux de police à Ottawa, plus particulièrement les règlements de la CCN portant sur le mouvement Occupons Ottawa. Ayant dressé des tentes dans le parc de la Confédération, à Ottawa, les participants du mouvement Occupons Ottawa se sont retrouvés sous la juridiction de la CCN. Dans le but de contribuer aux études émergentes portant sur le maintien de l’ordre lors des mouvements « Occupons » et aux études portant sur les réseaux de police, nous analysons les rapports d’incidents des agents de conservation (portant sur Occupons Ottawa), lesquels ont été obtenus en vertu de la loi canadienne sur l’accès à l’information, et les résultats d’entrevues avec des agents de la CCN. Nous montrons comment les agents de la CCN ont participé au maintien de l’ordre en milieu urbain, au retrait de nuisances et au maintien de l’ordre lors de manifestations au sein d’un réseau comprenant des agents de police municipaux et fédéraux, des agents de sécurité privés et des organismes de renseignement fédéraux.

Police-sponsorship networks: benign ties or relations of private influence?

ABSTRACT This article examines relational ties between private sponsors and public police departments based on sponsorship of Canadian and international policing conferences and galas. Using network analysis and descriptive statistics, we investigate ties among 375 sponsors and 16 law enforcement conferences and galas held in 2015 in Canada, the US, and the UK. Of 16 police conferences and galas, 13 are connected via common sponsors. We discern trends in the industry sector, sub-sector, and country of sponsoring entities. In the discussion, we develop an agenda for future research and debate concerning the influence private sponsorship may have on the actions of police and civilian officials comprising four areas: gifts and ambiguous exchange, network embeddedness, analogical comparison, and trade secrecy.

Brokering Access Beyond the Border and in the Wild: Comparing Freedom of Information Law and Policy in Canada and the United States

Contributing to literature on jurisdictional variation in freedom of information (FOI) law and policy, we draw from field notes produced during numerous, systematic FOI requests of police agencies in nine Canadian provinces and ten US states. We conceptualize these experiences using notions of “brokering access,” “law in the wild,” and “feral law.” Our findings demonstrate key differences in how public police agencies store, prepare, and disclose information at municipal and provincial/state levels in Canada and the US, meaning that FOI-related feral lawyering in Canada and the United States differs and fluctuates because of the variation in the mode of contact with FOI coordinators, fee estimate practices, and procedures for and responsiveness to appeals. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of our findings for methodological and sociolegal literature about FOI requests and for provincial/state FOI policies in both countries. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Theorizing freedom of information: The live archive, obfuscation, and actor-network theory

Abstract Freedom of information (FOI) is typically analyzed as a law and legal discourse. In sociology, criminology, and socio-legal studies, FOI is also increasingly used as a method to generate disclosures about inside government practices. Absent from this growing literature regarding FOI are reflections on how to theorize FOI processes and their relation to state power and information. Drawing from information and archival studies, sociologies of secrecy and deception, and actor-network theory, we advance three frameworks to make this contribution. First, we conceive of FOI as a crucial component in the live archive. Second, we conceive of FOI as a mechanism for obfuscation, state secrecy, and legitimacy. Third, we conceive of FOI as an actor-network. In conclusion, we reflect on what these three theoretical approaches and tools add to literature on information, power, research methods, and government.

Expertise and the Professionalization of Municipal Corporate Security in Canadian Cities

Corporate security brings to mind the image of an in-house security team working behind the scenes in a multinational company to protect assets, prevent employee theft, and safeguard the chief executive officer from threats. However, corporate security takes other forms. Not only are there different kinds of corporate security units in private companies (Lippert, Walby and Steckle, 2013; Petersen, 2013), but the practices and techniques of corporate security are being trans-ferred into public agencies and governments too. Since 2001, at least 17 Canadian municipal governments have created municipal corporate security (MCS) units. MCS units centralize asset protection, employee investigations, ‘nuisance’ policing, physical security for buildings, and some bylaw enforcement, all of which previously tended to be the responsibility of different municipal departments. Although the number of personnel varies in MCS units, they tend to be responsible for all aspects of security within City Hall and on other municipal properties in any given city.

Deception Declassified: The Social Organisation of Cover Storying in a Secret Intelligence Operation:

This article asks why and how governments keep secrets from publics, journalists and politicians using the strategy of ‘cover storying’. To develop a theory of cover storying, insights are drawn from political sociologies of state secrecy and from recent sociological examinations of secrecy and deception in organisations. This theory is illustrated by analysing Cobra Mist, a secretive and deceptive Anglo-American Cold War intelligence operation. Examining recently declassified documents, this article develops a framework for the analysis of five interrelated narrative conditions that shape social processes of cover storying: correspondence; plausibility; accountability; constraint; and durability. In conclusion this article reflects on the broader implications of this analysis for contemporary state and organisational theories and understandings of secrecy.

Haunting Encounters at Canadian Penal History Museums

As a form of dark tourism or thanatourism (Knudsen 2011) visits to penal history museums have gained popularity in many countries across the world (Ross 2012), including Canada (Walby and Piche 2015a). Contributing to cultural studies literature on museums (e.g. Tan 2012; Newman and McLean 2004) and penal heritage sites (e.g. Welch 2015; Wilson 2008), we examine the role that hauntings and ghosts play at Canadian penal history sites. Gordon (2011: 2) defines hauntings as expressions in which “a repressed or unresolved social violence is making itself known.” As mediums for hauntings, ghosts captivate believers, as well as sceptics, social theorists, and lay persons (Holloway and Kneale 2008; Gordon 2008; Jones 2001). For example, Jeremy Bentham—the author of infamous ideas for imprisonment including the Panopticon—disbelieved in ghosts, all the while remaining terrified of them.