Criminology

Canada’s correctional institutions are largely private and hidden from public view; because of this, much of the public gets their information regarding the criminal justice system from popular media. As it stands, there is a lack of research regarding the portrayal of correctional guards in popular media. A large portion of research pertaining to correctional guards is focused on how guards are portrayed in news media rather than popular media. The existing research into correctional guards in news presents them in a negative light with a tendency to focus on non-prisoner harassment, crime unrelated to the job, and budgetary issues (Vickovic et al., 2013). This thesis presents the result of qualitative exploratory study using content analysis as a means of understanding how correctional guards are portrayed in popular media. Ten of the top thirty grossing prison films released between 1994 and 2024 were analyzed thematically using grounded theory methods. The results show that correctional guards are generally portrayed as violent, aggressive, lazy, and lack respect for the prisoners. The significance of this study not only includes adding to popular criminology research but also offering a potential explanation for some motivations of becoming a correctional guard and explaining the gendered aspects of the ways in which correctional guards are portrayed and implications that may have on prisoners. Future implications of this study include contributing to the literature surrounding prisoning, correctional guards, and popular criminology and transforming people’s views and perceptions regarding correctional guards by pointing out protentional inaccuracies.

This study explores the complex relationship between alcohol use and occupational identity among musicians working within nightlife venues in Vancouver, British Columbia. While prior research has examined alcohol consumption in the hospitality sector, little attention has been paid to musicians as a distinct labor group operating within similarly permissive and criminogenic environments. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with active musicians, this research investigates how alcohol functions within the music industry, as a social lubricant, coping mechanism, reputational tool, and workplace expectation. The study applies Erving Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical model to understand how musicians perform identity in alcohol-saturated spaces, and Sampson and Laub’s (1993) life course theory to examine patterns of desistance over time. Findings reveal that alcohol use is deeply embedded in the professional and cultural expectations surrounding live performance, with drinking often seen as integral to networking, performance energy, and audience engagement. However, many participants also expressed increasing awareness of the long-term personal and professional consequences of sustained alcohol use, leading some to reject or renegotiate their relationship with alcohol. By situating musicians within broader criminological frameworks, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of how occupational contexts shape behavior and identity in high-risk cultural industries

Every day, people across the country log onto Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other forms of public communication to get the latest information on significant events happening in their communities. One of the more newsworthy categories is often crime stories. For those who have witnessed a crime, turning to social media can become a form of influence that can affect their statement to the police and in court. This study takes a qualitative approach to examine themes consistent with social media’s influence on eyewitness testimony. The project accomplished this by conducting six in-depth interviews with three police officers and three prosecutors. All the police officers were employed in the RCMP Major Crimes division, with two being part of the interview team at one point in their careers. Two prosecutors worked as trial crown council members for the BC Prosecution Service for most of their law careers. The last decided to keep their affiliations confidential. Five themes were discovered during the study. These themes included social media’s status as neither good nor bad, eyewitnesses’ decreasing importance in court, social media’s impact on how participants talk with witnesses, the case-by-case nature of everything in the justice system and the differing definitions of social media.

Each summer, hundreds of Canadian post-secondary students are recruited by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) under the Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP) to become Student Border Services Officers (SBSOs). In a paid, non-union role, students act in similar capacities to full-time Border Services Officer (BSO) labour. This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of the never before examined SBSO program in an academic context. Through qualitative interviews conducted with former SBSOs, a wide range of issues were uncovered, from low wages to poor culture, in addition to the challenges and tribulations associated with the examination of insular organizations, such as CBSA.

Offenders and crime, especially those with a violent nature, are rife within the news media. However, little research exists pertaining to these offenders who are going to be, or nearing, their release on parole. This thesis aimed to extend prior literature by conducting two qualitative content analyses. The first included a general selection of Canadian parole-based newspaper articles from 2002 to 2022 in order to create a foundation of how parole is represented in the media. The second was an in-depth analysis that drew upon articles from a male offender (Larry Takahashi) and a female offender (Joanna Larson) to compare representations based on gender. This exploration uncovered four central themes, the types of crimes published, gender of offenders, age of victims, and the usage of certain language. The results of this study revealed several implications related to community attitudes, and public policy.

This study used in-depth qualitative interviews from six participants to understand prison activists’ perceptions of the prison system and their strategies for enacting change. A constructionist lens was used to analyze the data with Joel Best’s (2017) social problems theory. Prisons were framed and problematized by the activists based on systemic issues of colonization, mental health and substance use, CSC misconduct, and cultural attitudes towards punishment. Lack of public awareness, and in educational environments, towards these issues led to strategies of education in order to build communities that are more inclusive, caring, and connected. Strategies like advocating for trauma informed care and connecting non- incarcerated with incarcerated were examples of community building. The activists also experienced challenges in their work with negotiating relationships - in particular, the fear of helping, frustration in managing the complexities of activism, and moving forward despite challenges in their work. Therefore, Goffman’s (1959) theory of presentations of self was another useful theoretical lens. The findings suggest that prison activists use different framing strategies depending on the context of the situation and how they want to present themselves. Furthermore, the strategic and covert methods for enacting change diverge from traditional activist methods and aim to create change at an individual level.

An increase in the amount of high-profile incidents and attacks in the West perpetrated by individuals subscribing to a variety of extremist ideologies over the past decade has led to an influx of academic research concerned with uncovering how and why it is that individuals become radicalized toward ideologically-motivated extremist violence. While such research has examined a diverse range of social, demographic, and psychological variables and their potential link/correlation to the radicalization process, there has yet to emerge an accurate or reliable ‘profile’ with respect to who is more or less likely to become radicalized or join extremist/terrorist movements. The primary aim of this dissertation is to present a novel theoretical approach which centers the concept of individual identity as the fundamental factor which drives individuals in the West toward involvement with extremist movements. This theory of identity, which presupposes that macro-level structural factors fundamentally dictate how individuals experience and internalize identity on a micro-level, is outlined by tracing how the concept of ‘identity’ has historically evolved in ‘Western’ culture up to its current iteration in modern, hyper-connected, late-capitalist society. Once outlined, this theory of identity is empirically applied to the digital media content of two extremist movements via a mixed-method approach that utilizes topic modelling, sentiment analysis, and thematic/discourse analysis. More specifically, the content of the so-called Islamic State (including videos, magazines, and Twitter posts) and the user-generated comments of the notorious far-right online community r/The_Donald are examined through this theoretical lens and analyzed with this mixed-method approach. Results indicate that, wittingly or not, modern extremist movements routinely incorporate questions of identity into both their propaganda and general discussions in a manner that provides simplistic solutions and answers to the complex problems of identity and self that are created and amplified within modern Western culture. As such, this dissertation argues that the attraction of extremist ideology and the potential for extremist violence is, at current, an inevitable byproduct of modern macro-level structural and economic conditions.

Much recent research has focused on examining various binary contradictions and employing metaphors pertaining to border security. Ultimately, this article argues that existing debates and metaphors are inadequate in describing what is understood and agreed upon in the literature in terms of borders. This article proposes a refinement of existing theory for contemporary borders, employing Baudrillard’s concept of ‘simulation’. The metaphor of the ‘simulated border’ functions to avoid debates surrounding geospatiality while also incorporating aspects of risk society and control in concluding that borders are anything but organic security environments, with the ‘stretched screens’ of border agents serving to produce dividuals that are tested within games of security to govern mobility anywhere in time or space.