- “Going Public”: Accessing Data, Contesting Information Blockades*
Introduction
Among prison scholars it is well known that access to penal institutions for the purposes of conducting research is not a given. For instance, in the Canadian context, some social researchers have been effectively barred from conducting studies inside prisons1 or have had to modify their research designs in order to enter the carceral.2 The ability to obtain unpublished records on imprisonment policies and practices in Canada has also been cited as a cumbersome process that often results in non-disclosure of the documents sought.3
Beyond data collection, social researchers have also raised concerns about the challenges of communicating their findings to publics outside the academy. In criminology, in particular, scholars have been concerned with the perceived lack of influence academic work has had on public policy and public opinion.4 These interventions, while not novel, have resulted in calls for a public criminology, renewing a discussion on how to disseminate research to non-academic audiences.5
Although much of the access to information literature is focused on the techniques used to obtain data as well as the barriers encountered during the process, and the public criminology literature is centred principally around the question of how to reach and influence those outside the halls of the university, few have examined how data collection and dissemination [End Page 635] activities shape subsequent information flows. Here, I am not referring to the moments when and sites where the “policing of criminological knowledge” occur that mediate access to data sources and diffusion opportunities based on the epistemological orientations and political agendas of gatekeepers.6 Rather, my concern is to move towards an understanding of how these activities shape the ongoing production of knowledge within the very bodies one is studying and about which one is communicating findings.
Informed by the work of Foucault,7 Walby and Larsen, in this volume, use the term “live archive” to “conceptualize the ongoing production of texts inside government agencies as a dynamic field of organization and contestation.” One aspect that is instructive about this concept is that it encourages the researcher to reflect upon how his or her interactions during the research process, ranging from the moments where information is being brokered to those where findings are being communicated within and outside the academy, shape the production of new governmental information.
In this brief article, I focus on how “going public” with one’s findings or research dilemmas—whether through public education initiatives, media coverage, or other means—can contribute to a climate where information held by government agencies is disclosed. I begin with a brief discussion on the approaches I used to obtain information on the construction of new adult penal infrastructure in Canada over the course of 2009. From there, I detail how I pressured authorities to disclose additional information in the lead-up to a public forum I organized in 2010. I also discuss a few of the public interventions I made that contributed to the emergence of a narrative regarding the federal government’s lack of transparency on matters of penal policy and led to the disclosure of new information concerning prison construction. I conclude with a brief discussion on the importance of contesting information blockades for the purposes of facilitating academic research and encouraging broader political debates in democratic societies.
Accessing Information on Prison Construction in Canada
In 2006, the Conservatives formed a minority federal government. Since their time in office, the tight control of information related to their policies and practices, as well as their “tough on crime” agenda have become their hallmarks. It is in this context that I began to study how governments in Canada, both at the federal and provincial–territorial levels, control knowledge about their activities through an analysis of how they manage information about their ongoing penal infrastructure initiatives. I was also seeking information concerning the considerations that led to the construction of new prisons, the number of prisoner beds being added to the overall capacity of the systems in respective jurisdictions, and construction-related costs. In developing the methodological framework for this study, I [End Page 636] originally planned to generate information...