Getting "Beyond the Fence" (ATI reference 17)
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Date
2018
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Abstract
In 2015, Correctional Service Canada launched a virtual tour promising a 'first-hand' and 'realistic' depiction of life and work inside a federal penitentiary titled Beyond the Fence. Based on an analysis of Access to Information disclosures, we examine the backstage activities that went into the production, marketing, and evaluation of the tour. Drawing on Goffman's (1959) notions of frontstage and backstage, as well as MacCannell's (1973) idea of staged authenticity, we reveal how representations of incarceration and punishment were sanitized to build legitimacy and consent for carceralism. We conclude by reflecting on the need to study the content and form of state representations of penality, and the challenges that representations pose to working toward a future without carceral institutions.
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Keywords
imprisonment, carceral expansion, carceral tours, representations, Access to Information
Citation
Shook, Jarrod, Justin Piché and Kevin Walby (2018) "Getting “Beyond the Fence”: Interrogating the Backstage Production, Marketing and Evaluation of CSC’s Virtual Tour", Annual Review of Interdisciplinary Justice Research, 7: X-X.