Crime, Control, and Culture presents Sandra Bucerius, University of Alberta.

The research group Crime, Control and Culture, of the Department of Sociology in Lund, welcomes Sandra Bucerius from the Department of Sociology, University of Alberta.

Title: “Sticking Points: Women’s Perceptions of a Prison Needle Exchange Program”
 
While prison needle exchange programs (PNEPs), or prison needle and syringe programs (PNSPs), have existed in different parts of the world since the 1990s, little is known about how currently incarcerated people perceive them—particularly in Canada, where such programs have only recently emerged. This study explores incarcerated women’s varied perceptions of a recently implemented PNEP using in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews with 56 federally incarcerated women in Western Canada. Contrary to common knowledge in harm reduction circles, most participants held negative views towards the PNEP and did not support its implementation.

These negative views included the perception that the PNEP acts as an obstacle to sobriety and could increase different types of harm—including encouraging injection drug use and contributing to overdoses—within the prison. Participants also identified many barriers to using the PNEP, including a perceived lack of confidentiality/anonymity for users of the program and that the PNEP itself is structurally incompatible with the rules and operations of a prison system that continues to criminalize drugs. This shows that programs in prison always require significant consultations with incarcerated people about the operation of such programs, as well as about allocating funds to other programs that target the root causes of addiction, such as programs that address past trauma and victimization. Perhaps more broadly, the findings raise the interesting question of what we do when harm reduction strategies supported by researchers, activists, and evidence are strongly contested by the very clientele they aim to serve?

Watch Sandra Bucerius in a TED talk in which she presents findings from her prison research

Go to soc.lu.se/en/crime-control-and-culture to learn more about the Department of Sociology research group: Crime, Control, and Culture.

More events later this year:

• June 2. Lois Presser, University of Tennessee.
  Title: "How to Analyze Discursive Absences, and Why You Would" (this event is part of the general Sociology and Social Anthropology Seminar Series).
   
• September 28: Jakob Demant, University of Copenhagen. Preliminary
  Title: Cryptomarkets and Darknet.
   
• October 26. Ugo Corte. University of Stavanger.
  Title: TBA
   
• November 23, 15-17. Stina Bergman Blix. Uppsala University.
  Title: JUSTEMOTIONS.