Carceral experiences and custodial lifeworld of prisoners’ families: The impacts of ion scan technology in Canadian prisons

Abstract

The effects of imprisonment have been well-documented to go beyond the walls of carceral institutions and beyond the individual subjected to confinement. This article analyzes the expansion of carceral experiences in the lives of family members of Canadian prisoners, focusing on the use of the Ion Mobility Spectrometry device during prison visits. Drawing on testimonies, this article explores how the ion scanner not only affects the experiences of families in carceral spaces but also how the impacts are carried out into their everyday lives outside prison walls. The socialization undergone due to “secondary prisonization” leads family members to adopt a “custodial citizenship” which ultimately shapes how they interact and navigate the world—a citizenship and way of life that is unique to having an incarcerated loved one.

Keywords

Prison families pains of imprisonment ion scanner ion mobility spectrometry device

Introduction

Experiences of imprisonment are largely shaped and defined by the carceral policies put in place, most of which are security oriented. The tools used to implement these policies play an essential role in the daily dynamics between prisoners and staff. However, it has been well-documented that the effects of these security mechanisms also go beyond the individuals subjected to confinement (Comfort, 2003; Hannem, 2012; Tasca et al., 2016). The ion scanner—used as a security screening tool during visits in Canadian federal penitentiaries¹—illustrates how technologies of imprisonment expand their grasp to relatives of prisoners.

As part of Canada’s national drug strategy within the “War on Drugs,” the circulation of illicit substances within prison walls was targeted to achieve “[a] safe, drug-free institutional environment” that is “a fundamental condition for the success of the reintegration of inmates into society as law-abiding citizens” (CSC, 2007, Commissioner’s Directive #585). As a result, the Ion Mobility Spectrometry device, commonly referred to as the ion scanner, was implemented across federal institutions in 2004. Emerging alongside various other investments in “tough on crime” security infrastructure (Zinger, 2016), the ion scanner was introduced as a technological mechanism to “prevent the entry and exit of unauthorized items and contraband in and out of the institution,” specifically to mitigate the circulation of illicit substances (CSC, 2012, Commissioner’s Directive #566-8).

Ion scanners are classified as nonintrusive, routine search methods. Located at the front gates of prisons, ion scanners “detect minute particles (nanograms) of substances associated with the production of illegal drugs” (Jackson and Stewart, 2009: 80). When visitors are processed through the ion scanner, CSC staff request a swab from a personal item of the guard’s choosing, such as keys, watch, wallet, jewelry, a scarf, and so on. A positive result or “positive hit” on the ion scanner indicates the presence of traces of illicit substances. When a positive hit is generated by the ion scanner, “a second test must be performed on a different item, followed by an interview with a supervisor or manager [where the visitor] is given the opportunity to provide an explanation for the positive search result” (Jackson and Stewart, 2009: 87). As mentioned by Hannem (2018: 94), “contamination can be a complete mystery to family members.” Supervisors are then to conduct a Threat Risk Assessment (TRA)² to determine whether to allow an open visit, a visit with designated seating, a closed visit, or to deny the visit altogether.

Despite its nationwide endorsement by the Canadian government, current research on the uses of ion scanners demonstrates that there is a lack of evidence to support their efficiency as a drug prevention security measure (Watson, 2016). The literature highlights the misuse and unreliability of the ion scanner, as CSC staff are poorly trained, procedures are incorrectly followed, and false positives are frequently generated (Jackson and Stewart, 2009). Moreover, it is extremely common for scanners to be triggered and produce positive hits for prescription medications and other licit substances (Hannem, 2011). Although staff are trained to distinguish the variations in positive hits between licit and illicit substances, visitors are still detained and pressured to undergo a TRA if they do not wish to voluntarily forfeit their visit. There is limited research on ion scanners and their effects on those who disproportionately experience their use: the visitors of those incarcerated (Chamberlain, 2015; Hannem, 2011; Hutton, 2016; Jackson and Stewart, 2009; MacKenzie, 2019; McCuaig, 2007; Watson, 2016).

The literature has, for a long time, analyzed the prison experience only from the institution and incarcerated person’s points of view. Until the mid-1990s, few studies have focused on prisoners’ friends and family members. However, our research situates itself within a booming scientific interest and scholarly publications dedicated to the collateral consequences of incarceration. Even though they remain socially invisible (Lehalle, 2017), existing literature, mainly from Europe and the United States, highlights the various specific experiences of having a relative in prison. Studies have shown the material consequences and economic insecurity that arise when households undergo the simultaneous reduction in resources and increase in legal and living expenses (Lehalle and Beaulieu, 2019; Hannem, 2012; Schwartz-Soicher et al., 2011; Touraut, 2012). Studies have also established the relational consequences of incarceration, focusing particular attention to the impact on couples’ intimacy and sexuality (Cardon, 2002; Comfort et al., 2005; Ricordeau, 2012; Vacheret, 2005). Other researchers have outlined the psychological and physical consequences of this experience on loved ones (Hannem and Leonardi, 2014; Touraut, 2012; Turney et al., 2012). Most notably, the stigmatization felt by families has been extensively shown in the literature, spanning across the nuclear family, extended family, the workplace, and the community at large (Condry, 2013; Hannem, 2008, 2012; May, 2000; Ricordeau, 2008). The emotional and behavioral impacts that a parent’s incarceration has on their children has also been extensively studied (Dallaire, 2007; Murray et al., 2014). What is clear is the vast extent to which collateral consequences touch every aspect of the lives of family members (Codd, 2008; Comfort, 2007), becoming particularly salient when they come in contact with the prison.

Research has detailed the specific aspects of family members’ encounters with prisons; most notably the various barriers—both physical and institutional—that discourage families and friends from visiting their loved ones in detention (Christian, 2005; Touraut, 2012). While visits are described as the best method for maintaining a relationship with the incarcerated person, research on this subject has critiqued the difficulties of obtaining visitation rights, as well as correctional staff’s harmful treatment of family members (Aiello and McCorkel, 2018; Ricordeau, 2008). The literature has reported correctional staff’s apparent disdain and lack of respect toward visiting loved ones (Cox, 2019; Ricordeau, 2008). Others have also critiqued the administrative burden of regulations and policies, which, rather than supporting and encouraging contact and relationship maintenance, discourage and punish them (Touraut, 2012). Security procedures during visitation have been described as a means to discipline the body and regulate the emotions of visitors (Aiello and McCorkel, 2018).

As a security mechanism, the use of the ion scanner on families of prisoners has been analyzed in the literature as extending the harms of suspicion, penal punishment, and stigma of criminality onto the families of those incarcerated (Chamberlain, 2015; Comfort, 2003; Hannem, 2011; MacKenzie, 2019; McCuaig, 2007). The suspicion of family members as potential drug carriers is exemplified within the CSC policies that regulate the ion scanner, which make it mandatory for family members visiting their loved one to be searched with this device, while exempting prison staff from passing through the ion scanner (CSC Commissioner’s Directive #566). This demonstrates the ways in which CSC actively responsibilizes family members for the drug crisis inside federal institutions. In our research, the ion scan technology appears to be one of the security tools that plays its part in creating the collateral consequences of incarceration experienced by families, shaping their lives both within and beyond the physical walls of prisons.

Methods and conceptual framework

This research is part of a broader study that aims to contribute to the literature on the collateral consequences of incarceration. Between 2016 and 2020, we conducted 47 semi-structured interviews with 43 relatives of incarcerated persons in federal or provincial institutions in Canada, who voluntarily answered our call for participants. Upon the request of participants, some family members were interviewed together as they formed part of the same family (e.g. two parents with an incarcerated child). The interviews were conducted privately, most in person and some via Skype, and lasted an average of 90 min. Shorter, secondary follow-up interviews were also conducted with some participants to explore their experiences within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary objectives of the research project were to (1) understand the social, economic, interpersonal, and identity challenges that family members confront both symbolically and materially when their loved one is incarcerated, (2) identify strategies of resistance, adaptation, and neutralization that were mobilized to manage these challenges, and (3) understand the stigma that family members confront in the many aspects of their lives, including at work, school, and in their extended families. These objectives allowed us to subsequently grasp a more in-depth understanding of the collateral consequences of incarceration, moving beyond the impact it has on those officially counted in the Criminal Justice System (Lehalle and Plamondon-Dufour, 2021).

Our sample of participants was comprised of individuals with diverse family ties to the person incarcerated, including grandparents, parents, sons, daughters, aunts, siblings, and spouses. With the written consent of our participants, the interviews were digitally recorded and later transcribed verbatim in preparation for coding and thematic analysis using the NVivo 11 software. Although some participants did not request anonymity, all participants were given pseudonyms. The familial relationship specified alongside the excerpts below were identified by our participants at the beginning of the interview.

Our interviews were semi-structured and intentionally left open-ended to allow for our participants to freely reflect on their experiences. The interview questions were formulated with an inductive logic and operationalized according to our research objectives. Participants were asked about the moment of incarceration and separation; their experiences with the carceral institution (e.g. interactions with guards, experiences of their visits); the social, financial and interpersonal challenges they faced with the incarceration of their loved one; and the resources and supports that were to available to them. Once transcribed and coded, we were able to capture the various social, economic, and interpersonal challenges that manifested in the experiences of our participants and the strategies that were mobilized to manage the collateral consequences of carceral power. To this effect, our research did not initially set out to explore experiences with the ion scanner specifically. However, our thematic analysis of the interviews quickly revealed the significant impacts of the technology on the family members we interviewed. This article draws on the testimonies of 20 interviewees from the broader sample, all of which experienced the scanning process of the ion scanner.

In a dialogue with the authors who have explored and critiqued the ion scanner (Hannem, 2012, 2018; Jackson and Stewart, 2009; MacKenzie, 2019; Watson, 2016), we propose an analysis of these testimonies that focuses on the experiences of the ion scanner in relation to its effect on their prison visit and on their everyday life outside the prison. Utilizing Lerman and Weaver’s (2014) concept of “custodial lifestyle,” our research highlights the specific forms of socialization that occur when having to go through the ion scanner itself. For these authors, the experience of the millions of American citizens incarcerated or under penal supervision is characterized by domination and submission to an arbitrary state of control. They argue that through interactions with “the punitive face of government” (p. 111), custodial citizens are socialized in a very specific way that affects their beliefs about the government, their citizenship, and lifestyle. The family members who participated in our research undoubtedly shed light onto a similar process of socialization, wherein they adapted to a particular lifestyle that is unique to having an incarcerated loved one.

Expanding on the work of Comfort (2003), we argue that these processes of socialization, in the contexts of visitation and submission to the ion scanner, contribute to the “secondary prisonization” of family members. In her analysis of visitation experiences at San Quentin State Prison, Comfort (2003: 79) characterizes the entire visitation process as a form of secondary prisonization, “a weakened but still compelling version of the elaborate regulations, concentrated surveillance, and corporeal confinement governing the lives of ensnared felons.” She significantly extends and expands on Sykes’ (1958) classic “pains of imprisonment” to the visitors of the prison. Sykes’ (1958) originally introduced the concept of “the pains of imprisonment” in his analysis of the implications of prison life from the viewpoint of prisoners. Namely, he developed five deprivations characteristic to imprisonment that encompass profound threats to prisoners’ personality or sense of personal worth: (1) the deprivation of liberty, (2) the deprivation of goods and services, (3) the deprivation of heterosexual relationships, (4) the deprivation of autonomy, and (5) the deprivation of security. These deprivations work to target and breakdown “the very foundations of the prisoner’s being” (p. 79), rendering them to be just as painful as the physical maltreatment that modern day punishment has sought to replace (Sykes, 1958). While Sykes’ formulation was originally focused on the experiences of prisoners, the “pains of imprisonment” literature has developed in the direction of identifying the ways in which they manifest both beyond the physical walls of prisons and to nonincarcerated individuals (Haggerty and Bucerius, 2020). Consequently, as argued by Comfort (2003: 79), family members become a “peculiar category of ‘prisoner’ [:] not convicted felons, but not beyond the suspicion of authorities or the taint of [stigma] […].” To this end, family members who enter prisons to visit loved ones also confront the painful deprivations and frustrations that characterize modern-day imprisonment.

Debates have sparked regarding the seemingly default use of the concept of “pains of imprisonment” by scholars. In their review of the evolution of the concept, Haggerty and Bucerius (2020) have diagnosed the pains framing as having become dulled and diluted by way of its conceptual enlargement. They propose that to maintain its conceptual integrity, scholars must avoid equating pains with other forms of suffering that are marked by a distressing nature. While we recognize and acknowledge this imperative critique presented by these authors, our participants spoke of these events not as nuisances or inconveniences but as marking events that significantly shaped their experiences within carceral institutions. We argue that the use and misuse of the ion scanner extend the pains of imprisonment felt by prisoners onto their family members, who are forced to learn the policies of the prison and adapt their lives to its disciplinary controls. Family members learn from their experiences with the ion scanner and subsequently develop an informal code to manage the consequences of such experiences. Lerman and Weaver (2014) identify two sets of lessons learned within the “custodial life world”: the “code of prohibitions” and the “rules of the game,” both of which are highlighted in our research.

We begin with reflections on the use and misuse of the ion scanner technology. Following, we present the different ways the ion scanner is an extended source of harm and pain experienced by family members and the negative consequences this technology has on family relationships. Finally, we explore the ion scanner as a tool of socialization to a specific custodial lifestyle, with unique rules and codes to live by. We conclude by questioning the impacts of this technology on the experience of citizenship that is both lived and acted by the relatives of prisoners.

The use and misuse of the ion scanner through the eyes of relatives

The ion scanner has been questioned for its use, reliability, and efficiency. The family members we interviewed perceived the procedures that regulate the use of the ion scanner as frustrating, humiliating, and demonstrative of the disregard and lack of respect that prison guards extend to them.

The ion scanner is a part of an array of security practices that are already difficult and trying for family members. They encounter various negative experiences within carceral spaces, such as the restriction of seemingly harmless personal objects, stringent dress codes, and invasive searches. Family members suffer recurring feelings of uncertainty, stress, and anxiety as they anticipate how their next visit will unfold. These feelings emerge in large part due to the constraints of prison procedures themselves and their unpredictable and inconsistent enforcement upon each new visit. The visitation experience and the submission to the ion scanners more narrowly have been documented as a source of (di)stress by family members who fear the consequences that emerge from false positive results (Chamberlain, 2015; Comfort, 2003; Watson, 2016). When describing her experience with the ion scanner, Quinn, a mother said:

If you test positive…really the only question they ask is “can you tell us how you came in contact with this substance?” Forget the fact that you have probably no idea of how you came in contact with this substance, that’s usually the only question they ask you…Because nothing else matters if you hit positive on the ion scanner. You don’t get in or there is some kind of sanction against you. And that’s really what causes the stress you know that until you pass that ion scanner, you have this lump in your stomach that won’t go away. (Quinn, Mother)

Procedures outline that the results of the ion scanner and information gathered by the interview should be considered to determine whether to proceed with a visit or to deny it (CSC, 2015). However, as stressed by Quinn, the assessments are often incorrectly completed, if completed at all. As mentioned by Jackson and Stewart (2009: 88), “in some situations, visitors and inmates may be denied visits based solely on false positives from the ion scan.”

The testimonies of our interviewees confirm the results of the public policy analysis conducted by Jackson and Stewart (2009), who established the existence of great discrepancy in how the policies and procedures that regulate ion scanners are applied—not only across institutions but also from manager to manager. These authors posit that the misuse of ion scanners is “part of a systemic failure by CSC staff to comply with law and policy” (xxii), highlighting the structural disadvantage family members succumb to as they pass through the ion scanner. Our participants became acutely aware of these inconsistencies as they were forced to familiarize themselves with the policies regulating the carceral tools they frequently came into contact with. Some even became heavily involved in active petitions to the government in attempts to address these discrepancies. In particular, Quinn, furthered:

The thing about the machine itself is that it has to be calibrated very specifically…and many of the people who are operating it have never had any training, or have maybe had one-hour training. I said to one of the supervisors one time “well when was the machine calibrated?” And he looked at me with a puzzled look on his face and he said “Well I don’t know what calibrated means”. So there is a degree of human error in the training. It has to be properly maintained…They’re supposed to clean the whole area around it, and themselves, and with an antibacterial solution. They are supposed to do a test swab and if for some reason it hits positive they are supposed to keep doing it until they get a clean swab. I’ve never seen them do that. (Quinn, Mother)

Due to the lack of adequate training of staff, many inconsistent practices interfere with the accuracy of the ion scanners, such as the “failure to clean the sample area before conducting a swipe, the failure to verify non-contamination of officers’ hands […], and tests being conducted by officers without gloves” (Jackson and Stewart, 2009: 88; Watson, 2016). Perceived as an illogical, unnecessary, inconsistent, and ineffective initiative, family members are often left frustrated and confused as a result of the ion scanner. This frustration and confusion is further exacerbated when visitation privileges of family members are reduced to closed visits.³ As expressed by Hannah, an aunt:

The frustrating part is that they’re not a person-to-person visit. It’s a through the glass visit. There’s no possible way for them to pass anything. That doesn’t make any sense to me. (Hannah, Aunt)

It is clear that the advantages of utilizing the ion scanner are disproportionate to the amount of (dis)stress that is endured by visitors. The family members interviewed greatly emphasized the ineffectiveness of the ion scanner. They perceived it as useless in preventing drugs from entering the prison, especially due to the selection of persons to be screened.⁴ Jeff, a father, emphasized the failures of the tool in preventing a fentanyl overdose at the prison where his child was incarcerated:

It’s coming in through the guards who aren’t scanned. It’s coming in through the workers who aren’t scanned. It’s coming in through volunteers and contractors who aren’t scanned, right? We’re not bringing stuff in. It’s like they’re guarding the henhouse and the whole back of the barn is open, right?…it’s really just intimidating, so it’s having a negative impact. It’s not preventing drugs from getting in the prison.…all the visits are closed [in this particular prison]. So, that drug did not come in with a visitor. (Jeff, Father)

Jeff describes how the stigmatic stereotype of prisoners and their families as risky individuals immersed in criminality is reinforced through the policies and practices that govern ion scanners. The policies and procedures disproportionately target family members, while neglecting to inspect and search prison guards, staff, volunteers and other professionals who enter the prison to the same extent (Hannem, 2011). In this context, where the ion scanner cannot guarantee effective drug prevention in prisons, it appears that its only guaranteed effect is the pains it inflicts on the families visiting their incarcerated loved ones.

An extension of the pains of imprisonment felt by families

Institutional technologies such as the ion scanner work to extend prisoners’ pains of imprisonment onto the family, both inside and outside prison walls. The pains of imprisonment are not experienced exclusively by the person imprisoned; to some extent, they are also felt by family members visiting incarcerated loved ones as they are subjected to institutional regulations, surveillance, and confinement (Chamberlain, 2015; Comfort, 2003). The policies and procedures that regulate the use of the ion scanner are a blunt illustration of the extended pains as they affect the autonomy, agency, dignity, and privacy of family visitors.

A deprivation of autonomy, agency, privacy, and dignity

By virtue of the suspicion extended to them due to their relationships with detainees, family members experience a deprivation of autonomy and agency through extensive surveillance. The physical bodies and movements of family members are controlled throughout the visitation process; a mirrored treatment to that of detainees. Our interviewees described their restricted movements through the prison walls as replicas of the ways their incarcerated relatives’ bodies are controlled within the carceral space. Much like prisoners themselves, they are escorted to and from the vending machines and locked in a room for their visit. Guards regulate the movement of family members throughout the duration of their visit: from when and where to wait in line before entering the ion scanner, and the length of time they must wait before entering. Although movements are excessively restricted and, in the case of closed visits, any form of physical contact with loved ones is impossible, family members are still required to succumb to the surveillance and risk management functions of ion scanners. The selection and removal of bodily objects, possessions, and clothes of the guards’ choosing further demonstrate the control of visitors’ bodies granted to prison officials, who deny them autonomy, agency, and often respect.

Family members are subjected to a lack of respect for their dignity and privacy in carceral spaces, as various techniques of dehumanization shape their experiences. Our research outlines how the interactions between family members and prison personnel are overwhelmingly negative experiences (Lehalle and Beaulieu, 2019). Family members endure too often the deprivation of their dignity as they feel treated like criminals in a way that is intentional, institutional, and structural. When describing an interaction with a prison guard during a particular visit, Jeff stated:

one [guard is] sitting there and he’s got both legs up on the desk and I stood at the window and he didn’t even bother turning his head. Like, it is just so disrespectful…it just conveys such a level of disrespect to families. And it makes you feel that much more ashamed. And that’s what it’s designed to do. That whole [visitation] process when you go in the door is meant to shame and blame. That’s what they’re doing. And it’s working. (Jeff, Father)

The disproportionate institutional emphasis on family members as potential drug carriers is deeply felt by families. They shared the humiliating experience of having their privacy stripped away by being interrogated in front of waiting visitors after a positive hit, and how the procedures, surveillance, and corporal control of the ion scanners perpetuated feelings of shame and embarrassment. Felicity, a mother, further illustrated this when she described a visit where she tested positive on the ion scanner:

I was quite smug in the knowledge that I’ve never done drugs. I never been in an environment around drugs…Every time it’s such a shock to go through this. And, then, you’re called in [to a room]. You have to appear before the correctional officers who ask you “Where were you? What did you do? Did you smoke?” And, you tell them that you’re principally against this kind of thing and you never are in that environment…And, so, that had been very daunting and very anxiety raising. And, every time I have gone through it [the scanner] – We go very frequently but I have to steal myself every time. (Felicity, Mother)

For some, the submission of their bodies to the ion scanner requires an involuntary surrendering of their individuality. As expressed by Felicity, to see her loved one, she is obliged to participate in this process of “stealing herself” away from her identity. Outside of prison, her sense of self is rooted in her commitment to refrain from drug-related environments. However, upon entering prisons, family members are dissociated from their own sense of identity and are cast as potential threats. This speaks in particular to the interconnectedness between the loss of agency and the loss of dignity that family members experience at the hands of carceral institutions.

The suspicion extended onto family members because of their relationship to prisoners is used to justify measures that threaten their autonomy, agency, dignity, and privacy. The stigma placed on family members facilitates the demeaning attitudes of correctional staff and harmful correctional practices. Research has demonstrated the role of carceral techniques in perpetuating the stigmatization of families and interference with their self-presentation during their visits within the carceral environment (Comfort, 2003; Hannem, 2011; MacKenzie, 2019). The ion scanner epitomizes those correctional practices that become a significant source of stress and harm for many family members who experience an overwhelming lingering fear.

While the process of submitting oneself to the ion scanner in combination with various carceral practices reproduces and extends the pains of imprisonment felt by incarcerated individuals onto their loved ones, the impacts on and adaptations made to familial ties themselves is perhaps the most significant pain experienced by family members.

Harms to family ties

In the eyes of family members, the pains experienced at the hands of prison procedures are not trivial. Prohibiting them from giving a kiss or a drawing to their loved ones in the name of preventing the flow of illicit substances ultimately redefines their way of being with their incarcerated relative. Gina, a mother we interviewed, questioned her abilities to be a mother if she could not hold her son in her arms or even send him a postcard. Carceral procedures evoke a structural and structuring impact on familial interactions as they interfere with the quality, quantity, and expression of interpersonal relationships with the detainee. Nathan spoke to the structuring impact on his bond with his father as a young child; a connection that was harmfully severed while his father was incarcerated:

Prison structure is all over your interactions in very particular sorts of ways. Where you can sit. How you can sit. How close you can get. When you can hug when you can’t hug. Or if you think about that experience where I put my hand up against the Plexiglas, the prison is literally mediating the physical contact that I can have with my father…(Nathan, Son)

While Nathan highlights how state agents and carceral power mediate and control family relationships, the ion scanner provides a striking illustration of the effects of the carceral institution on the interactions and behaviors of families. As the ion scanner becomes a source of dread and fear, it mediates and shapes the nature of the visits for both the detainee and their families. The threat of false positives generates fears due to potential administrative consequences, such as the long-term effects on or cancellation of visitation and the recording of an incident on the detainee’s file. Even more so, as experienced by one of our participants, the administrative consequence for a false positive revoked open contact visits, which led to the cancellation of their previously scheduled marriage with their incarcerated spouse. The use of the ion scan technology has detrimental consequences to the emotional and interpersonal well-being of family relationships.

The current use of the ion scanner jeopardizes familial ties that are important for reintegration and rehabilitation. Visits are negatively impacted, cancelled and denied, or families avoid visiting altogether (MacKenzie, 2019; McCuaig, 2007; Watson, 2016). Ines, a mother, shared a story of a family separated by false positive hits:

But the sad part of it is, there’s one lady, her husband is 62 and he takes Zantac. Zantac produces a false positive for cocaine. So, he will not go to see his son anymore. He will not go. And her grandson was so traumatized by the ion scanner that he will not go and see his dad anymore. She’s the only one that keeps on going. That’s not right. This is another family that’s trying to keep the family reins on the one who’s in there so that they don’t engage and become a lifetime criminal. And the system is so broken against them that it’s like swimming uphill. (Ines, Mother)

Faced with the strenuous challenge of maintaining familial ties, relatives sometimes stop visiting their incarcerated loved ones, as the brunt and trauma of the ion scanner is too much to bear; a reality highlighted by Erika who recounted the experience of her sister, an aunt of a detainee:

They interrogated her. “What are you bringing into the institution?” And “How often do you take drugs?” And then they found it at the sole of her shoe or something like that. I don’t even remember what they swabbed. She was terrified. Terrified that she was going to be found guilty of some offence. And she said to me, “I’ll never come again; I can’t go through that again.” So, it made my son feel terrible. Here she is, it took her a whole day [to get to the prison], right? She had to drive…to meet me. It took her a whole day for that and to be treated so poorly…So, can you imagine how it tears families apart? (Erika, Mother)

Consequently, some family members will refrain from visiting the prison out of fear of testing positive and enduring the consequences that ensue for both themselves and their loved ones. In such cases, the carceral regime impedes not only on the expression of family ties but also on their maintenance and very existence. Rather than prevent the entry of drugs into prisons, ion scanners work to weaken prisoners’ support systems. In simple terms, and as perceived by several family members interviewed, “the ion scanner is meant to keep families out. And you know what? It’s working really well. And that’s a shame” (Ines, Mother). Hannem (2011) explains this as being a result of the dismissal of families as expendable and acceptable collateral damage subordinated to the objectives of “drug-free” prisons.

Beyond the impact on family ties, these experiences affect family members outside the confines of the prison and into their daily lives, as they develop new techniques and strategies of living and interacting with the world.

The ion scanner as a tool of socialization to custodial lifestyle

Unsurprisingly, prisoners’ relatives react and adapt to try to prevent or mitigate the effects of these pains of imprisonment. The analysis of our interviews leads us to adopt the concept of “custodial citizenship” used by Lerman and Weaver (2014), extending it beyond those formally in contact with criminal justice. The family members who participated in our research were similarly socialized to develop a distinct set of lessons and norms “governing how best to move through the social world” (p. 112). Lerman and Weaver identify two sets of lessons that custodial citizens learn in their new lifeworld: the code of prohibitions and the rules of the game. The code of prohibitions outlines a series of behaviors that custodial citizens learn to be off limits for them. Specifically, they quickly learn which behaviors render them suspicious or lead to an increased contact with carceral actors, such as law enforcement, the courts, or correctional institutions. Subsequently, custodial citizens develop a set of norms to govern themselves by to avoid unwanted contact with the state. The second set of lessons—the rules of the game—involves a set of ideas that are adopted by custodial citizens pertaining to how the world operates “for people like them.” Custodial citizens develop an understanding of the “parallel set of rules, opportunities, and punishments” that seem to exist for them and learn to “come to terms” with the realities of their social standing (p. 118). Our analysis reveals that family members, through their experiences with the ion scanner, come to learn the code of prohibitions and the rules of the game that make up their new custodial lifeworld.

The code of prohibitions: A complete lifestyle makeover

The relatives we interviewed demonstrated a form of prohibition code, in which they learned a new set of behaviors, techniques, and strategies of living and interacting with the world to avoid the risk of false positives. These family members engaged in important modifications of their lifestyle, routines, and day-to-day behavior. For example, to avoid any type of contamination, family members would wash their clothes the morning of their visits; fill up their gas tanks the night before to avoid gas stations where traces of drugs are often found; wear gloves throughout the duration of their commute to the prison; and avoid making any stops to go to the bathroom along the way. Several family members outlined the extent of these new learnt code of prohibitions when describing the lengths they go to avoid the negative administrative consequences of a positive hit. For example, Jeff stated:

Before we went [to visit], last time, we took all the clothes that we were going to wear and we washed them and put them in the dryer and, and we did that on the Saturday night because we went on a Sunday. And then we got up in the morning and we showered. And then we went from the shower down to the laundry and put the clothes in the dryer right on. We put nitro gloves on our hands when we drove in the car, right? In case…you go through Tim Horton’s [coffee shop] [and] you pick up something…So, we wore nitro gloves. We washed our jewelry. We washed our rings. We only took one piece of identification. Our driver’s licence…We washed our glasses. All of this. All to go and see Jacob with a closed visit behind a plate of glass. (Jeff, Father)

Some family members engaged in forms of ritualistic cleaning, where they routinely cleaned anything that could potentially be tested.

So what happens is that you start getting this compulsion that everything has to be clean. I used to take a bath the night before, take a shower the day of, take the clothes that I’m going to be wearing straight out of the dryer and put them on, leave the house, and drive until you get there. You don’t stop. You don’t stop for a coffee, you don’t stop to go to the bathroom, you don’t stop for anything until you get there. (Quinn, Mother)

Sometimes family members were compelled to perform these ritualistic cleaning behaviors even on days where there was no visit planned. Driven by their fear, some family members assigned specific items to the days of visits: “you become paranoid…You only have your prison shoes, your prison everything” (Fanny, Mother). Some family members shared that they even stopped taking certain prescription medications—even though staff members are informed about these medications (Hannem, 2011)—as they learned firsthand that they will test positive on the ion scanner.

Like a true process of socialization, this code of prohibitions is learned not only through their own personal experiences, but they are also passed on to other relatives. One of our only participants who had not personally experienced a positive hit on the ion scan discussed having indirectly learnt the strategies necessary to avoid testing positive:

My husband and I were never hit positive. We really were careful. We never made any stops on the way there. We always bagged our money. But we were told by the people, “Careful, careful. If you go to the bathroom, if you fill up with gas, if you stop at Timmies [coffee shop] and handle money, you can get a positive hit. (Erika, Mother)

While it is not surprising that family members try to avoid these negative experiences, the extent of the strategies developed and the ways these strategies impact their daily lives and how they navigate the world are immense. The breadth and severity of the impacts on their ways of being are captured by the adaptations made in efforts to mitigate the risks of false positives. They modify their choice of clothes, hygiene routines, basic needs, and the organization of their days and interactions. These adaptations take place despite family members knowing that they cannot fully control the results of the machine, nor how the guards will interpret and sanction these results. Although not physically inside the confines of the prison, the prohibitions and control enforced in carceral spaces exude past the physical walls and seep into the daily lives of family members.

The rules of the game

The family members interviewed described having learned what we conceptualize as the “rules of the game,” which are inherent to their situation. Their testimonies highlight a set of ideas about how things operate within the prison world. These “rules of the game” outline all that is imperative to know when a member of your family is incarcerated and you enter into a custodial citizenship. Our findings reveal that families get to know the same three types of “rules of the game” identified by Lerman and Weaver (2014): the resources, the roles of space and place, and the durable mark of stigma.

The first rule of the game pertains to the importance of resources. Lerman and Weaver demonstrate that financial resources are directly tied to the opportunities for justice that are available for custodial citizens. While custodial citizens were aware that “in principle, the justice system should be a neutral arbiter whose outcomes were not contingent on individual wealth,” the real rule of the game experienced by custodial citizens highlights the power of financial resources and the differential advantages that accompany them (p. 119). In a similar vein, the family members in our study quickly realized that some resources are crucial when you have a close one incarcerated. Resources such as lawyers, financial support, transportation, and flexibility of work schedule were identified as major game changers in their new reality. With respects to the ion scanner, family members were acutely aware of the benefits that come with having their own car as opposed to public transportation, as it is an essential tool to avoid cross-contamination. The family members we met had to learn which resources were valuable both for them and for their incarcerated loved one. However, they often stressed the lack of resources that were currently in place to support them as they adapted to their new lifeworld, leaving them vulnerable to the pains of carceral contact.

The second rule of the game addresses the roles of space and place. Lerman and Weaver (2014: 120) identified that “one’s value was closely tied to geography.” In their study, neighborhoods are not only physical spaces, but spaces that subject custodial citizens to varying degrees of contact with the state, thereby affecting one’s chance in life. In our research, the importance of space manifests itself through the geographical location of the prison where a loved one is incarcerated. The distance of the prison entails multiple consequences for family members. It affects not only the possibility and frequency of visits but also the financial and physical price of these visits on their lives. Forced to navigate the differences between each carceral institution,⁵ family members need to learn which prison is geographically closer and accessible, which prisons allow contact visits as opposed to closed visits, which ones provide relevant programming for their incarcerated relative(s), and which one is safest for them in terms of prison population and staff. Space and place become particularly important in the context of ion scanners when family members make long commutes to the prison, or adjust their employment or place of residence to accommodate a specific carceral institution, yet are confronted with the risk of a false positive and denial of visit. The implications of these carceral geographies therefore impact not only the security of their incarcerated loved ones but also their abilities to maintain familial bonds in the carceral system.

The third rule of the game, Lerman and Weaver’s (2014) durable mark of stigma, seems to be an important rule of the game experienced by family members. For Lerman and Weaver, this rule of the game captures the treatment that custodial citizens come to expect after having been marked with the durable mark of stigma and “consigned to a class of people deserving of suspicion and oversight” (p. 122). In previous publications (Lehalle and Beaulieu, 2019), we document how families experience the durable mark of stigma in their interactions with the outside world, their extended families, their workplaces, and their communities. In a process similar to the other rules of the game, family members learn to adapt their everyday life and social interactions. In the outside world, they must learn how to face the stigma they endure when disclosing the incarceration of their loved one. Inside the prison, they are confronted by the correctional practices of the ion scanner that exacerbate the structural stigmatic assumptions of being risky and suspect, thereby justifying the institution’s interventions and surveillance (Hannem, 2011, 2012; McCuaig, 2007). This is demonstrated through our participant Mary’s particular experience from being a well-respected volunteer who never had to go through the ion scanner, until the day she became a spouse of a prisoner and subsequently, a suspected drug smuggler. She shared that this particular demotion in trust and automatic veil of suspicion that was placed on her reveals her status—and that of family members—as “second class citizens” in the eyes of the carceral regime. Ines echoed this sentiment as she explained the stigma she felt as a result of this security measure:

The system makes me feel like a criminal. When you go in, they treat you like shit. They make you feel like you can’t be trusted. I’m 58 years old. I’ve never broken the law in my life but every time I go in there, I go past that Ion Scanner and I’m terrified, terrified…Violated. Made to be criminal. Victimized one more time. Humiliated. Ashamed. Being accused before doing anything wrong. I feel like the Correctional Services of Canada looks at visitors and family as the enemy and I believe that they’ve set up structures to make you feel that way. (Ines, Mother)

Having learned the lessons of the custodial lifestyle, family members quickly adapt to the rules that apply to “people like them” and become what is “expected of them.” Following the unwritten rules to avoid putting their loved ones at risk, they, to some respect, learn to remain quiet, to refrain from questioning procedures, and to be wary of the authorities. For a few family members, their resistance as committed citizens took place at the imaginary level such as wishing to “put on a full hazmat suit” with nothing underneath and take it off and stand naked and say, ‘Scan away’ (Jeff, Father) or “‘to bring a portable shower’. Shower down in the parking lot and walk in stark naked. ‘Go ahead. Scan me’.” (Ines, Mother). However, family members expressed that they would not act on these thoughts, as their activist driven aspirations are suppressed by their fears of retaliation on their incarcerated loved one. As such, family members often wait until the end of the prison sentence to fully involve themselves.

It is clear that the experiences of having a loved one incarcerated drives family members to become critical of the Criminal Justice System. Once past the initial shock, some family members interviewed adopted a reactive attitude. In this respect, they become “custodial citizens” that are resilient, reactive, and resourceful. The voluntary, uncompensated participation of the family members interviewed—an obvious sample selection bias present in our research—is in itself a reactive response to their circumstances. Motivated by the opportunity to speak out and denounce the constraints and injustices of the prison system, research participation is an action of a committed citizen. Additionally, most of our interviewees expressed a desire to be personally involved in addressing the weaknesses of the Criminal Justice System. As committed citizens, they sought out more effective correctional practices employed abroad and created support groups for families with incarcerated loved ones. Some relatives even become activists, who strive to offer solutions to address these injustices; an instance most clearly exemplified by a mother who launched a media and political campaign, as well as a parliamentary petition asking for a review of the use of ion scanners in prison.

Conclusion: A secondary prisonization leading to a custodial citizenship

Our research contributes to the growing literature on the numerous collateral consequences of the penal system by showcasing how the ion scanner amplifies the harms engendered by correctional practices. The testimonies of the family members we met reveal how prison policies and practices, and the use of the ion scanner in particular, are insensitive, unresponsive, and even toxic to their physical, emotional, and social needs. Their experiences within the penal system illustrate the negative implications for their personal well-being and also for the well-being of family relationships. Specifically, we show how the ion scanner technology works to sever ties and relationships through the denial of visits as a consequence of positive hits, as well as through the fear it incurs for family members who decide not to visit as often anymore, if at all. Visits are important for relatives to (re)establish familial relationships and maintain familial communication with their incarcerated loved ones that have often been strained by the prison environment (Dehart et al., 2018; Tasca et al., 2016) and disrupted by incarceration (Christian and Kennedy, 2011). Consequently, through the erosion of familial ties, the depth of imprisonment felt by those incarcerated is exacerbated as the abnormality of the carceral environment trickles into and shapes the nature and relationships of their outside world (Crewe, 2020). The misuse of the ion scanner ignores the extensive literature on the key role of family relationships in the prisoner’s reintegration into society (Hairston, 1998; Mills and Codd, 2008; Petersilia, 2003). By creating obstacles for family visits, the current use and expansion⁶ of the ion scanner is a blunt contradiction to the penal system’s objective of reintegration.

One important contribution of our research has been to document the ways the ion scanner extends the pains of imprisonment onto the relatives of those incarcerated, as they are forced to learn the policies of the prison and adapt their lives to its disciplinary controls. Following Comfort’s (2003) lead, the type of adaptations to the procedures, practices, and norms of the penal institution that families adopt can certainly be analyzed as secondary prisonization. Specifically, it is a process wherein the institutional distinction between visitors and prisoners are collapsed, casting family members as quasi-prisoners: “people at once legally free and palpably bound” (Comfort, 2003: 103). Our findings echo that of Aiello and McCorkel (2018: 358) who define this unavoidable secondary prisonization as “the process through which the micro physics of carceral power is realized among members of prisoner’s social networks.” Their use of Foucault’s (1980: 39) analysis of a “power that reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches the bodies and insert[s] itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning process and everyday lives” certainly resonates with our research. We show that the ion scanner is a fundamental device that epitomizes this secondary prisonization of family members, which also extends outside the walls of the prison and into their everyday lives. Unquestionably, the ion scanner touches relatives’ bodies and affects their actions, routines, learning processes, and their day-to-day living.

The main contribution of this article is to outline the specific way of life that is adopted by families once a loved one is incarcerated. The experiences and perceptions of the ion scanner provide a window to observe how the carceral system socializes family members. It is clear that they experience a particular form of alienation from their way of life as a result of the fear this machine evokes. Family members learn that access to their loved one is conditioned by the submission of their bodies and lives to carceral discipline and power. They adopt and sometimes internalize new ways of being and acting in and outside prison. It is precisely these adaptations and internalizations that lead us to critique the expansion of the punitive control of the state well beyond the official number of individuals involved in the Criminal Justice System. To this end, we argue that Lerman and Weaver’s (2014) concept of “custodial citizenship” extends itself to the family members of those incarcerated.

In addition to the various avoidance techniques adopted to mitigate the risk of testing positive, we observe in some respects that family members of prisoners also learn the unwritten rules of the game, which relegate them as “custodial citizens.” Through government contact, citizens develop a sense of their place in the political community and the extent to which they are included within it (Lerman and Weaver, 2014; Lipsky, 1980). Similar to research presented by Lee et al. (2014), our research shows that family members hold a negative perception of the penal system and its agents, as they express their growing resentment and mistrust toward the institutions and agents they once thought functioned to protect them. The family members that participated in our research testified to the injustices and lack of respect experienced within carceral spaces, especially pertaining to the use of the ion scanner; injustices that shocked them all the more because they emanate from public institutions. They are dismayed by their interactions with, and newfound perceptions of the justice system, public services, and authority figures. The state becomes both the origin and enforcer of their suffering by means of the ion scan technology. Consequently, their previously held perceptions of the nature of the relationship between citizen and the state are tainted. Confronted by a technological tool that is ineffective and inconsistently used by seemingly untrained prison personnel, family members experience an upheaval in the meanings they have previously assigned to the social contract they have with the state and question its ability to embody and enact justice and democracy.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research project “Dans l'ombre des prisons et pénitenciers canadiens: les proches de détenus et l'expérience carcérale élargie” is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

ORCID iD

Brianna Garneau

Notes

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