Governing the captives: forensic psychiatric nursing in corrections.
TOPIC/PROBLEM: Since 1978, the federal inmates of Canada serving time have had access to a full range of psychiatric care within the carceral system. Five psychiatric units are part of the Federal Correctional Services. Nursing practice in forensic psychiatry opens up new horizons in nursing. This complex professional nursing practice involves the coupling of two contradictory socio-professional mandates: to punish and to provide care.


METHODS
The purpose of this article is to present the results of a grounded theory doctoral study realized in a multi-level security psychiatric ward of the Canadian Federal Penitentiary System. The theoretical work of the late French philosopher, Michel Foucault, and those of sociologist, Erving Goffman, are used to illuminate the qualitative data that emerged from the author's fieldwork.


RESULTS
A Foucauldian perspective allows us to understand the way forensic psychiatric nursing is involved in the governance of mentally ill criminals through a vast array of power techniques (sovereign, disciplinary, and pastoral) which posited nurses as "subjects of power". These nurses are also "objects of power" in that nursing practice is constrained by formal and informal regulations of the penitentiary context.


CONCLUSIONS
As an object of "governmental technologies", the nursing staff becomes the body onto which a process of conforming to the customs of the correctional milieu is dictated and inscribed. The results of this qualitative research, from a nursing perspective, are the first of their kind to be reported in Canada since the creation of the Regional Psychiatric Correctional Units in 1978.
Holmes
Dave
D
University of Ottawa, Faculty of Health Sciences School of Nursing, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1H 8M5. dholmes@uottawa.ca
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002170:Canada; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry / Q000458:organization & administration*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D028642:Persons with Psychiatric Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology*; D015279:Organizational Culture; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D010327:Pastoral Care; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D010358:Patient Participation; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011329:Prisoners / Q000523:psychology; D011330:Prisons / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011678:Punishment; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012962:Sociology, Medical; D013037:Spatial Behavior