Dominique Moran

Carceral Geography and the Spatialities of Prison Visiting: Visitation, Recidivism, and Hyperincarceration

Geography, as a disciplinary lens, brings a valuable perspective to the study of the carceral, and carceral geographys concern for the spatial could provide a new explanatory perspective to the consideration of some accepted tenets within criminology, whilst at the same time offering a productive and useful ‘grounding’ of contemporary geographies of emotion and affect. In the context of hyperincarceration and the carceral continuum of recidivism and repeated reimprisonment, this paper considers the long-observed relationship between prison visitation and reduced recidivism, posits prison visiting rooms as underresearched carceral spaces, and develops theoretical and methodological innovations which nuance the understanding of prison visiting.

Prisoner reintegration and the stigma of prison time inscribed on the body

Building on previous work which has conceptualized the embodied experience of imprisonment as prison time ‘inscribed’ on the body, this article argues that the experience of reintegration after release from prison is similarly embodied and corporeal. It contends that while scholarship of prisoner reintegration post-release has identified the stigmatization of ex-inmates as a challenge to their successful re-entry, the embodied experience of this process has remained under-researched. Drawing on extensive research with women prisoners, former prisoners and prison staff in the contemporary Russian Federation, the article presents empirical evidence that explores the embodied experiences of release and reintegration, identifying specific examples of prison time being ‘inscribed’ on the body which prove problematic for former prisoners, and demonstrating the ways in which their attempts to ‘erase’ or overwrite these inscriptions constitute a stage in the continual corporeal process of becoming. The article suggests that these insights could inform better understandings of experiences of reintegration, and could in turn inform the improvement of provision of services to prisoners during incarceration.

“DOING TIME” IN CARCERAL SPACE: TIMESPACE AND CARCERAL GEOGRAPHY

Abstract. By bringing debates over experiential time within human geography and criminology/prison sociology into dialogue with one another, this article draws attention to the imperative of considering time in the geographical study of incarceration. Informed by an understanding of space and time which sees them as analytically inseparable from each other, TimeSpace, it revisits existing empirical material previously generated through qualitative research within criminology and prison sociology, and identifies some potential synergies with human geography; in highlighting overlapping temporalities in a carceral context, and in demonstrating both the significance of perceived control over time, and the experience of the lifecourse, when past, present and future are viewed through “each successive now” in a context where (clock) time “moves on” but space is fixed.

Lipstick, Lace, and Longing: Constructions of Femininity Inside a Russian Prison

This paper examines the construction of femininity within Russian womens prisons. On the basis of fieldwork carried out in three womens prisons in the secure and restricted penal zone within Mordovia, Russian Federation, we present unique and original qualitative data, as well as a critical engagement with contemporary Russian press sources. Starting from the assumption that the (free) female body is a particular target of Foucauldian disciplinary power, in that gender is a discipline which produces bodies and identities and operates as an effective form of social control, we examine the ways in which this disciplinary power of gender is compounded by bodily imprisonment. Criminal women are often considered not only to have broken the law but also to have offended against their culturally specific gender role expectations, and punishment applied to women prisoners is grounded not on what women are like, but on how women ‘ought’ to behave in a particular cultural context, with interventions coercing or persuading women to reintegrate into a recognisably ‘feminine’ form. We uncover Russias exceptional and exclusionary geography of womens imprisonment, and rehabilitative and educational processes, including a beauty pageant, which seek to rescript criminal women toward a predetermined ‘ideal’ of Russian womanhood, and also explore the ways in which women seek to resist.

Leaving behind the ‘total institution’? Teeth, transcarceral spaces and (re)inscription of the formerly incarcerated body

This article contests Goffmans (1961) interpretation of the prison as a ‘total institution’, echoing critiques which draw attention to its spatial porosity and permeability, and drawing attention to the experience of incarceration and reintegration as inherently embodied. It suggests that ‘transcarceral’ spaces, in which released prisoners experience processes of re-confinement, extend the reach of the prison beyond its apparent physical boundaries. Drawing on scholarship within feminist geography which demonstrates the ways in which embodied subjectivities and identities are bound up with assumptions about gender and class, and are place-contingent, it conceptualises the lived experience of incarceration as inherently embodied, and argues that these transcarceral spaces exist not just as physical locales, but also through the ‘inscription’ of incarceration upon the body. Inscriptions of incarceration thus become corporeal markers of imprisonment, blurring the boundary between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ the prison and extending carceral control through the stigmatisation of previously imprisoned individuals. In this context, it presents empirical data generated through qualitative research with formerly incarcerated women in the Russian Federation, describing how incarceration is inscribed on their bodies through changes to dentition, in a way which encourages stigmatisation, and which intersects with multiple facets of discrimination to create damaging and limiting power relations, extending the experience of incarceration into ‘free life’ by restricting mainstream social interaction and the likelihood of successful reintegration post-release.

HIV/AIDS in Russia: determinants of regional prevalence

BackgroundThe motivation for this paper is to inform the selection of future policy directions for tackling HIV/AIDS in Russia. The Russian Federation has more people living with HIV/AIDS than any other country in Europe, and nearly 70% of the known infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The epidemic is particularly young, with 80% of those infected aged less than thirty, and no Russian region has escaped the detection of infections. However, measures to address the epidemic in Russia have been hampered by late recognition of the scale of the problem, poor data on HIV prevalence, potentially counterproductive narcotics legislation, and competing health priorities. An additional complication has been the relative lack of research into the spatial heterogeneity of the Russian HIV/AIDS epidemic, investigating the variety of prevalence rates in the constituent regions and questioning assumptions about the links between the epidemic and the circumstances of post-Soviet transformation. In the light of these recent developments, this paper presents research into the determinants of regional HIV prevalence levels in Russia.ResultsStatistical empirical research on HIV and other infectious diseases has identified a variety of factors that influence the spread and development of these diseases. In our empirical analysis of determinants of HIV prevalence in Russia at the regional level, we identify factors that are statistically related to the level of HIV prevalence in Russian regions, and obtain some indication of the relative importance of these factors. We estimate an empirical model that includes factors which describe economic and socio-cultural characteristics.ConclusionOur analysis statistically identifies four main factors that influence HIV prevalence in Russian regions. Given the different nature of the factors that we identify to be of importance, we conclude that successful HIV intervention policies will need to be multidisciplinary in nature. Finally, we stress that further research is needed to obtain a better understanding of the statistical relations that we have identified; our empirical findings can serve as an important guide in these future research efforts, as they indicate which processes play an important role in regional HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in contemporary Russia.

Patriotic Discourses in Russia's Penal Peripheries: Remembering the Mordovan Gulag

Abstract Using materials gathered during field work in the penal region in the southwest corner of the Republic of Mordoviya in 2007, the authors examine the official representations of the history of the Mordovan gulag from 1930 to the present day. Through an analysis of the penal authoritys institutional newspaper, its museum and anniversary celebrations marking the founding of the Mordovan gulag, the authors argue that a stress in the official history on continuity and tradition of service is evidence of growing confidence of this part of the security apparatus after their loss of status in the 1990s associated with the collapse of the penal economy and negative comment by international monitors and domestic penal reformers.

Welcome to Malaya Rodina (‘Little Homeland’): Gender and Penal Order in a Russian Penal Colony

This article presents findings from research conducted in a penal colony for young women in Russia. Russia’s penal system remains under-researched in socio-legal and criminological scholarship. This contribution is the first multi-disciplinary study of Russian imprisonment to be conducted in the post-Soviet period, bringing together criminology, human geography and law. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a landmark moment in Russia’s penal trajectory due to the excessive scale and use of imprisonment as a political and cultural corrective. Our findings reveal the punishment of young women in Russia to be exceptional and exclusionary. Personnel play a crucial role in shaping penal strategies that encourage young women to adopt blame and shame sensibilities. We develop a conceptualization of Russian penality as it relates to young women prisoners. We argue that the prisoner transport is the first stage in a penal continuum where gender, penal order and culture come together to create a specific penological place identity, which we conceptualize as Malaya Rodina (Little Homeland). We conclude that Russia’s penal geography, and its attendant penological imagination, is a vestige of the Soviet penal monolith.

‘Daddy is a difficult word for me to hear’: carceral geographies of parenting and the prison visiting room as a contested space of situated fathering

Advocating greater engagement between children’s and carceral geographies, this paper explores the spaces of parenting as they exist within a UK male prison, building upon criminological research on the effects of imprisonment on prisoners’ families and children. Focusing primarily on the visiting room, it extends discussion of the specificities of everyday material spaces and practices of parenting currently under scrutiny within children’s geographies and geographies of parenting, and brings these subdisciplines into dialogue with carceral geography. Concerned specifically with the intimate, embodied and sometimes banal practices of parenting in this constrained and highly surveilled context, it draws attention to previously overlooked spaces and identities of situated fathering.

The paradox of the ‘green’ prison: Sustaining the environment or sustaining the penal complex?

This article examines the ways in which sustainability discourses intersect with carceral policies. Building new prisons to ‘green’ industry standards; making existing prison buildings less environmentally harmful; incorporating processes such as renewable energy initiatives; offering ‘green-collar’ work and training to prisoners; and providing ‘green care’ in an effort to reduce recidivism are all provided as evidence of ‘green’ strategies that shape the experience of prisoners, prison staff and the communities in which prisons are located. Although usually portrayed positively, this article proposes an alternative, potentially more contentious, interpretation of the green prison. In the context of mounting costs of incarceration, we suggest that green discourses perversely are fast becoming symbolic and material structures that frame and support mass imprisonment. Consequently, we argue, it may be the penal complex, rather than the environment, which is being ‘sustained’. Moreover, we suggest this is a topic worthy of attention from ‘green criminologists’.