Rachelle Larocque

St Catharine's College

A Critical Analysis of Canadian Penology and Scholarship

Criminological scholars have often characterized penal systems as being ‘welfare-oriented’ or ‘punitive’ in their approach to criminal justice and penal policy (see Garland, 2001; Pratt, 2002; Cavadino and Dignan, 2006).  However, penal systems are often a mixture of rehabilitative and humanitarian practices, values, and habits.  The Canadian penal system has a reputation for being the ‘liberal’ neighbour of a very different American system with more in common with its European partners.  In fact, very little is known about the experience of imprisonment in Canadian prisons. My PhD dissertation examines the extent to which Canadian penal practices, values, and habits are punitive and/or liberal-humanitarian.   My research aims to: 1. Explore the experience of imprisonment and staff-prisoner relationships in detail, and in depth, in two contemporary Canadian prisons throug the use of qualitative in-depth interviews and questionnaires such as the Measuring the Quality of Prison Life (MQPL) and the Staff Quality of Life (SQL) developed my members of the Prisons Research Centre, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge.  2. Describe and characterize the Canadian penal system using (and developing) a conceptual language developed for other countries' penal systems (so, for example, the concepts of depth, weight, tightness, quality); and further, to operationalize these concepts in order to facilitate precision in measurement.  

Start Date: 2009/10.

End Date: 2012/09.

§ Ph.D. Candidate, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Thesis focus: A Critical Analysis of Canadian Penology and Scholarship
Supervisor: Professor Alison Liebling

 

§  Master of Arts, Sociology (Specialization in Criminology), University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Thesis focus: Serials: The Contested and Contextual Meanings of Seriality.
Supervisor: Dr. Kevin Haggerty

 

§  Bachelor of Arts, Highest Honours, Criminology (Concentration in Sociology; Minor in Psychology), Carleton Univeristy, Ottawa, Canada
Honours Thesis: Differential Media Attention to Canadian Serial Killer Cases.
Supervisor: Dr Aaron Doyle

 

 

Awards / Grants

 

2009-2012 Cambridge Commonwealth Trust

2008-2009 Commonwealth Scholarship

2008-2009 Diane Elizabeth Cossins Memorial Scholarship in Criminology

2008-2009 Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship (Master's)

2007-2008 SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s

2007-2008 Walter H Johns Graduate Fellowship

2007-2008 Graduate Recruitment Bursary

2007-2008 University of Alberta Master’s Scholarship (Honorary)

2007-2008 Ontario Graduate Scholarship (Declined in Favour of SSHRC)

2007-2008 University Medal in Arts (Carleton University) 2006-2007

 

For CV, pleae email Rachelle.

 

 

§  Neo-liberal governance

§  Homelessness, Poverty and Prisoner Rights

§  Prison and its legitimacy

§  Penal and Social Policy

§  History of Crime and Punishment

§  Criminological Theory

§  Serial offenders and Violent Crime

§  Paraphilias

                

 

Book Review:

§  Larocque, R. (2010). 'Why We Kill: Understanding Violence Across Cultures and Disciplines'. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 49(5):547-548.

 

§  Larocque, R. (2011) 'Supermax: Controlling Risk Through Solitary Confinement'. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 50(2): 227-228.

 

§  Larocque, R. (2012). ‘Incivility: The Rude Stranger in Everyday Life’. Crime, Media, and Culture, 8:1 (forthcoming).

 

Professor Alison Liebling