The Ties that Bind: Family Surveillance of Canadian Parolees

Abstract

This article combines the Foucauldian governmentality principles of managing troublesome populations with the actual everyday institutional discourse at parole hearings. The article illuminates how parole board members, inmates, and inmates' family members participate collaboratively in the construction of inmate identities as either parolees who should be released to the community or as prisoners who should remain in prison. The Foucauldian governmentality principles are complemented by a family attachment perspective whereby an offender's stake in conformity is promoted. Board members use a typology of caring and uncaring families to organize the parole hearings. This typology includes caring inmate mothers, caring inmate fathers, caring female partners uncaring inmate fathers, uncaring male partners, and uncaring female partners.