Affiliation:
1. Bar-Ilan University, Israel
2. University of Chicago, USA
Abstract
This qualitative research study explores prisoner and rehabilitation staff perspectives ( N=26) on the phenomenon of ‘change’ as a mode of enforced performance in a work release programme in Illinois. Research questions were developed on the basis of a prolonged encounter with re-entering ex-offenders during a project that combined theatre and research. Bringing together two distinct disciplines – Performance Studies and Critical Social Policy – we explore the extent to which re-entering prisoners and rehabilitation staff conceive of their work release programme as enforcing a performance of change into a rehabilitated self. Our results show that all participants feel that the programme enforces such a performance. However, some saw this performance as truly transformative, while others considered it politically oppressive and instrumental. Language performance in particular was considered a strictly imposed demand on prisoners, mostly black, who were advised not to use Ebonics outside of the facility. Implications for policy are outlined.
Subject
Political Science and International Relations
Cited by
8 articles.
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