Expressions of masculinity in prison are most often characterized as being structured in response to an environment that encourages displays of stoicism, bravery, physical prowess and violence/aggression. However, we found that the antagonistic, precarious and risk-prone environment of the prison shapes prisoners' behaviours and the constitution of 'normative' and hegemonic masculinities in more nuanced ways than prior research suggests. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 56 male parolees, we explored how these men perceived and responded to risk while incarcerated, as well as how prison masculinities are linked with experiences and management of risk to their personal (legal, physical and emotional) safety. In this article, we focus on how prisoners mobilized and negotiated their masculine subjectivities to handle the uncertainty of imprisonment and the various risks they encountered in prison. We argue that penal risks and prison masculinities are mutually constitutive; risk is linked to perceptions of physical and emotional vulnerability, which shape prisoners' masculine embodiment.

IntroductionKnowledge about the factors that contribute to the correctional officer’s (CO) mental health and well-being, or best practices for improving the mental health and well-being of COs, have been hampered by the dearth of rigorous longitudinal studies. In the current protocol, we share the approach used in the Canadian Correctional Workers’ Well-being, Organizations, Roles and Knowledge study (CCWORK), designed to investigate several determinants of health and well-being among COs working in Canada’s federal prison system.Methods and analysisCCWORK is a multiyear longitudinal cohort design (2018–2023, with a 5-year renewal) to study 500 COs working in 43 Canadian federal prisons. We use quantitative and qualitative data collection instruments (ie, surveys, interviews and clinical assessments) to assess participants’ mental health, correctional work experiences, correctional training experiences, views and perceptions of prison and prisoners, and career aspirations. Our baseline instruments comprise two surveys, one interview and a clinical assessment, which we administer when participants are still recruits in training. Our follow-up instruments refer to a survey, an interview and a clinical assessment, which are conducted yearly when participants have become COs, that is, in annual ‘waves’.Ethics and disseminationCCWORK has received approval from the Research Ethics Board of the Memorial University of Newfoundland (File No. 20190481). Participation is voluntary, and we will keep all responses confidential. We will disseminate our research findings through presentations, meetings and publications (e.g., journal articles and reports). Among CCWORK’s expected scientific contributions, we highlight a detailed view of the operational, organizational and environmental stressors impacting CO mental health and well-being, and recommendations to prison administrators for improving CO well-being.

Drawing on interview data with 56 former prisoners in Canada, we examine how male prisoners understand, experience, and respond to threat while incarcerated. We show that prisoners face a variety of different and often competing threats, resulting from prisoner interactions (e.g. threat of physical violence for being a “snitch”) on the one side, and institutional powers and procedures on the other side (e.g. threat of delayed release from prison). These threats are competing insofar as countering a prisoner threat opens the door to threat on the institutional level (i.e. administrative uncertainties) and vice versa. As a consequence, we show how feeling threatened for prisoners becomes paramount and in many cases unavoidable as the different threats in prison are difficult, if not impossible, to handle in unison. However, in an effort to stay physically safe and work toward their release, prisoners must find viable strategies to navigate different prison environments, particularly as they move between prisons of differing security classifications. We draw on Giddens' notion of “ontological insecurity” to draw attention to prisoners' feelings of perpetual vulnerability and insecurity. In addition, we build on Luhmann's conceptualization of risk and danger to explain how male prisoners experience and respond to moments of “danger” when they are faced with competing threats and must decide how to best navigate them.

This article analyses the role, form, and function of halfway houses (often referred to as re-entry centres) in contemporary Canadian punishment. Building on studies of Nordic 'penal exceptionalism' and open prisons, I argue that criminologists can usefully study and conceive of halfway houses as a form of open prison. Thinking of halfway houses as open prisons (rather than re-entry centres or post-prison institutions), I suggest, is not only more reflective of these houses' workings and dynamics but is also more productive. Conceptually, it positions halfway houses in opposition to walled prisons, thereby redirecting attention from the post-prison stage to how halfway houses could present a real existing alternative to closed or walled prisons.

To date, prisoner reentry has been treated as a generic process—that is, people ‘reenter,’ without much specification regarding when and/or where this ‘reentry’ occurs. Drawing on in-depth interviews with halfway house residents in a north-western Canadian city, this article seeks to unpack the concept of prisoner reentry by exploring its spatial-temporal dimensions. I conceptualize prisoner reentry as a temporally fragmented sometimes piecemeal process that occurs across time as well as different locales, including neighbourhoods, cities, and sometimes even provinces. I do this by analyzing reentry through the lens of mobilities. Specifically, I argue that reentry via halfway houses produces mobilities that are experienced by former prisoners as simultaneously disciplining and productive of their future. In this context, I highlight the importance of paying attention to ex-prisoners’ conceptions of their future, including when and where they imagine that they will enact different aspects of their reintegration.