“You were relieved, but at the same time terrified”: Exploring the emotional geographies of Admissions and Discharge in Canadian federal prisons
For most federally incarcerated individuals in Canada, Admissions and Discharge (A&D) represents their first stop upon arriving at a penitentiary. Many people step into A&D experiencing feelings of fear, anxiety and anticipation, which result in powerful emotional memories of the space. Using qualitative data gleaned from 57 semi-structured interviews conducted with formerly federally incarcerated individuals, we explore the emotional geographies of A&D. To concentrate our discussion, we focus our analytic attention on participants’ experiences of A&D spaces at Millhaven Institution and Grand Valley Institution–maximum security penitentiaries for men and women, respectively. We contend that A&D spaces, as well as the intake processes they facilitate, fulfil the conditions of what Garfinkel (1956) refers to as a status degradation ceremony, the purpose of which is not only to shame a criminalized person, but also to reconstitute their identity as a lesser being. Additionally, while the admissions process actively reproduces a status degradation ceremony that transforms the free citizen into a criminalized subject, we argue that the discharge process does not wholly reinstate one’s identity or status upon release, at which time stigmatization lingers as an emotional burden.