The female inmates of Unité 9: comparing fictional space and reality
In this article Unité 9, a French Canadian television show about women in prison, is analyzed as a way to explore some aspects of women’s experience in federal prisons in Canada. After giving a brief history of female incarceration and describing some general characteristics of this prison population, we provide a synopsis of Unité 9 episodes and discuss the relevance, benefits, and limitations of using a television program to help understand actual situations. We then discuss our theoretical understanding of prisons, their dynamics, and the resistance engaged in by women prisoners (Smoyer, 2016 ; Lavigne, 1999 ; Frigon, 2000, 2012 ; Bosworth, 1999 ; DeGraff et Kilty, 2016 et Joël-Lauf, 2009). Last, we explore some parallels between fiction and reality by looking at four prison sectors : admissions, isolation units, residential areas, and mother-child spaces, revealing different forms of submission, alienation, and resistance. This article sheds light on the inter-play between prison space and female prisoners – both those sentenced federally and those on Unité 9.