‘You’re Walking into Situations Where You Just Really Don’t Know How It’s Going to Go Down’: The Production of Carceral Space and Risk in Parole Work

Abstract

Following interviews with 150 Canadian federal parole officers employed in prisons or community spaces, we ‘spatialize’ parole work by analysing how participants perceive and navigate risk and use emotional labour in relation to their carceral workspaces. Employing Henri Lefebvre’s theorization of the social production of space, we analyse how parole officers’ feelings of vulnerability arise from the interaction of the built environment with people’s use of space (including both criminalized persons and other correctional workers). We also unpack the strategies employed by parole officers to mitigate the spatial risks experienced in their occupational routines; and examine how these spatial experiences connect to the emotional labour performed by parole officers in their supportive and disciplinary job functions.