Kate Rossiter – författare

Violence is an inescapable through-line across the experiences of institutional residents regardless of facility type, historical period, regional location, government or staff in power, or type of population.

Population Control explores the relational conditions that give rise to institutional violence – whether in residential schools, internment camps, or correctional or psychiatric facilities. This violence is not dependent on any particular space, but on underlying patterns of institutionalization that can spill over into community settings even as Canada closes many of its large-scale facilities. Contributors to the collection argue that there is a logic across community settings that claim to provide care for unruly populations: a logic of institutional violence, which involves a deep entanglement of both loathing and care. This loathing signals a devaluation of the institutionalized and leaves certain populations vulnerable to state intervention under the guise of care. When that offer of care is polluted by loathing, however, there comes along with it an unavoidable and socially prescribed violence.

Offering a series of case studies in the Canadian context – from historical asylums and laundries for “fallen women” to contemporary prisons, group homes, and emergency shelters – Population Control understands institutional violence as a unique and predictable social phenomenon, and makes inroads toward preventing its reoccurrence.

Violence is an inescapable through-line across the experiences of institutional residents regardless of facility type, historical period, regional location, government or staff in power, or type of population.

Population Control explores the relational conditions that give rise to institutional violence – whether in residential schools, internment camps, or correctional or psychiatric facilities. This violence is not dependent on any particular space, but on underlying patterns of institutionalization that can spill over into community settings even as Canada closes many of its large-scale facilities. Contributors to the collection argue that there is a logic across community settings that claim to provide care for unruly populations: a logic of institutional violence, which involves a deep entanglement of both loathing and care. This loathing signals a devaluation of the institutionalized and leaves certain populations vulnerable to state intervention under the guise of care. When that offer of care is polluted by loathing, however, there comes along with it an unavoidable and socially prescribed violence.

Offering a series of case studies in the Canadian context – from historical asylums and laundries for “fallen women” to contemporary prisons, group homes, and emergency shelters – Population Control understands institutional violence as a unique and predictable social phenomenon, and makes inroads toward preventing its reoccurrence.

"This was several times with that damn cribbage board. I hate cribbage boards to this very day. They never beat us on the arms or legs or stuff, it was always on the bottom of the feet, I couldn''t figure it out." Brian L., Huronia Regional Centre Survivor

Over the past two decades, the public has borne witness to ongoing revelations of shocking, intense, and even sadistic forms of violence in spaces meant to provide care. This has been particularly true in institutions designed to care for people with disabilities. In this work, the authors not only describe institutional violence, but work to make sense of how and why institutional violence within care settings is both so pervasive and so profound.

Drawing on a wide range of primary data, including oral histories of institutional survivors and staff, ethnographic observation, legal proceedings and archival data, this book asks: What does institutional violence look like in practice and how might it be usefully categorized? How have extreme forms violence and neglect come to be the cultural norm across institutions? What organizational strategies in institutions foster the abdication of personal morality and therefore violence? How is institutional care the crucial "first step" in creating a culture that accepts violence as the norm?

This highly interdisciplinary work develops scholarly analysis of the history and importance of institutional violence and, as such, is of particular interest to scholars whose work engages with issues of disability, health care law and policy, violence, incarceration, organizational behaviour, and critical theory.