EPL On The Edge
On The Edge is a speaker series featuring cutting-edge research presented by scholars and researchers from Edmonton's academic community. Presented by the University of Alberta's Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies (GPS), these sessions take place monthly at the Strathcona Library Branch. All are welcome to attend and explore the forefront of academic discovery with us!
Bringing Prison Research to the Public: Discussing the Story and Work of the University of Alberta Prison Project
The University of Alberta Prison Project—or the UAPP for short—is one of the largest prison studies in Canada, if not the world. Spearheaded by Drs. Sandra Bucerius and Kevin Haggerty in 2016, the UAPP is a multi-year, multi-method research study all about prison life and re-entry in Western Canada. Over the years, the many researchers on the team have conducted thousands of interviews. We’ve interviewed incarcerated people and correctional officers/staff across various institutions, as well as the loved ones of the incarcerated. But how, exactly, did this project come to be? What are the challenges of doing prison research? What have we learned from the many stories participants have shared with us and, ultimately, what are the long-term goals of the project? Our talk, in essence, attempts to answer these questions, shining light on the “doing” of prison research in Canada and the story of the UAPP.
Date/Time: Tuesday, January 28, 2025 | 7 - 8:30 p.m. MT | Online (Zoom)
About the Presenters:
Lorielle Giffin is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. She has extensive experience interviewing incarcerated people, loved ones of incarcerated people, recent arrestees, and police officers. Her own dissertation research is ethnographic and community-based in nature and focuses on the experiences of doing and receiving harm reduction/street outreach in Edmonton. She has been a researcher on the University of Alberta Prison Project since 2019.
Ashley Kohl is a PhD candidate and Joseph-Armand Bombardier scholar in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. Her research interests include environmental sociology, social movements, critical criminology, and prisons. Ashley is a senior researcher at the Centre for Criminological Research and is the project lead for the University of Alberta Prison Project. Her MA thesis examined how protective custody classification affects how incarcerated men relate to each other and negotiate their own sense of identity within the larger inmate hierarchy. She is currently working on her dissertation examining environmental and counter-environmental movement politics in Alberta.
Contact Us
Jay Friesen, Ph.D.
Educational Curriculum Developer
Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies
Email: jayf@ualberta.ca