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Welfare, inequality and life course

PhD profile

The prisons responsibility for and role in drug rehabilitation has been considerably strengthened the last decade. Through participant observation and qualitative interviews with both inmates and staff at two different drug rehabilitation programs in a closed Norwegian prison, I explore how the prison relates to inmates with drug problems, and how inmates with drug problems experience and relate to the prison.

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In my PhD project I explore how the prison relates to inmates with drug problems, and how inmates with drug problems experience and relate to the prison.

This ethnographic PhD-project is about drug rehabilitation in prison. Through participant observation and qualitative interviews with both inmates and staff at two different drug rehabilitation programs in a closed Norwegian prison, I explore how the prison relates to inmates with drug problems, and how inmates with drug problems experience and relate to the prison.

The prisons responsibility for and role in drug rehabilitation has been considerably strengthened the last decade. Convicted individuals with drug problems are the target group for many of the rehabilitating measures and programs, due to the close relationship between substance abuse and crime. The aim behind this development is that inmates with drug problems shall be reintegrated in the community with improved possibilities to live a law-abiding life.

Rehabilitation is nonetheless subordinated the prisons’ primary aims and tasks, namely control and security. Inmates with drug problems have an equal need for and right to health-, treatment-, and rehabilitation services as other Norwegian citizens, due to the ‘principle of normalization’. Yet, in the daily life in Norwegian prisons, we know that both rights and services are challenged by security and control considerations. Thus, rehabilitation and treatment are becoming more and more important in an institutional setting where security and control prevails as the dominant task and purpose.

The phd-project explores the conditions for rehabilitation of drug users in the highly controlled context of the prison. The following research questions are raised in the project:

  • How does imprisonment affect inmates with drug problems, and how do they experience the rehabilitation efforts?
  • How do inmates cope with their drug problems in prison, and what measures, services, professionals, rights and relations are of greater or lesser importance for them?
  • How is rehabilitation of inmates with drug problems affected by the prisons primary aim of taking care of control and security, and how does it affect the relations between inmates and staff?
  • What characterizes use and exchange of drugs in prison, and how does it affect social relations, power relations and rehabilitation programs in prison?

Theoretically the project builds on a variety of perspectives, most notably issues of power, control, and resistance in welfare institutions (e.g. Cohen, 1985; Mik-Meyer and Villadsen, 2007).

Furthermore, the project aims at integrating a research tradition into drug use, drug exchange and drug cultures with the prison ethnographic approach into the issues of social relations, power relations and resistance in everyday prison life.

References:

Mik- Meyer, Nanna og Villadsen, Kaspar (2007): Magtens former. Sociologiske perspektiver på statens møde med borgeren. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.

Cohen, Standley (1985): Visions of Social Control: Crime, Punishment and Classification, Polity Press