"Life should be difficult for the poor, but safe": exploring the discourses used to garner support for transforming Ontario’s community housing into a transcarceral space

Since the 1990s, Ontario and Canada at large have seen the rise of the neoliberal state with a concurrent punitive turn in public policy. While academic inquiry has attempted to understand the evolution of penality, the functional linkages that exist between the social assistance and penal apparatus...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Leblond, Alyssa (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2023
In: Critical criminology
Year: 2023, Volume: 31, Issue: 1, Pages: 223-238
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:Since the 1990s, Ontario and Canada at large have seen the rise of the neoliberal state with a concurrent punitive turn in public policy. While academic inquiry has attempted to understand the evolution of penality, the functional linkages that exist between the social assistance and penal apparatus have been largely overlooked. This paper seeks to bridge this gap through examining the way in which community housing is increasingly being envisaged as a mechanism of social control and an exclusionary tactic. Drawing on 150 newsprint media items, reports produced by non-governmental organizations, and Hansard transcripts, the hegemonic discourses surrounding Ontario’s Community Housing Renewal Strategy are explored. Particular attention is given to the proposed amendment which denies individuals criminalized for a ‘serious criminal offence’ from accessing community housing. In conceptualizing criminalized individuals as ‘non-deserving’ citizens, exclusionary tactics are legitimized as ‘crime reduction’ strategies.
Item Description:Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 236-236
ISSN:1572-9877
DOI:10.1007/s10612-022-09671-8