‘It’s like they don’t want you to get better’: Psy control of women in the carceral context

Abstract

This article examines how women incarcerated in provincial and federal prisons in Canada experience medicalization as the predominant form of correctional psy intervention. In order to privilege the oft ignored and typically silenced voices of incarcerated women, this article draws on life history interviews with 22 formerly incarcerated women who were living in halfway houses and working to transition from prison to the community. The analysis highlights the (over)use of prescription psychotropic medications as a governance strategy and the impact this practice has on women serving time. Participants had limited access to non-medical interventions in general, and no access to counselling services outside the purview of correctional control. The overlapping of correctional and psy interventions in the prison setting transforms psy treatment not only into a mechanism of social control, but also into a punitive and disciplinary enterprise that delegitimizes the women’s self-identified needs.