James Gacek
Biographic Data
| ID | 3560749 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James Gacek |
| GIVEN NAMES | James |
| FAMILY NAME | Gacek |
| SIGNATURE | GACEK J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Regina |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5424-9934 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 14 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The agricultural prison industry
Prison farms are common programs within correctional services; however, knowledge is limited regarding the agricultural prison industry. As a starting point for further study and policy development, we conducted a scoping review to map knowledge on the industry. The results show many publications focused on the agricultural prison industry were outdated, United States-based, and/or non-original research. Findings reveal agricultural positions ten…
Exposing the elephant in the room? Connecting speciesism to Canadian animal welfare legislation
Speciesism is a form of discrimination resulting in the unequal treatment of non-human animals based on the perceptions of human beings. This article aims to make a connection between speciesism and animal welfare legislation, focusing on how animal welfare protections are impacted by the anthropocentric views of specific animal species. We draw upon scholarship, legislation, and Canadian case law and examples to do so. While there is significant…
Youth and Young Terror
Focusing on developments within Canadian jurisprudence, the authors explore significant case law and its impact on our understanding of the challenges faced by youth and young offenders convicted of terrorism offences while navigating the legal and correctional systems. We demonstrate how Canadian law has often failed to address the needs and lived experiences of youth and young offenders convicted of terrorism offences while dealing with legal s…
Islamophobia and the Benefits and Challenges for Prison Imams
Increasingly, religion plays a significant role in the rehabilitation of inmates across the US and Canada. While there is no shortage of literature on the effects of religion within penal institutions, there is a lacuna of scholarship dealing with Islam in carceral spaces. American and Canadian prisons offer unique opportunities to understand the relationship between Muslim chaplains and the prison experience more broadly. Based upon a substantiv…
The “Pains of Employment”? Connecting Air and Sound Quality to Correctional Officer Experiences of Health and Wellness in Prison Space
This article highlights Canadian federal correctional officers’ (COs) sensory engagements with their workplace to reveal how, in particular, air quality and sound quality generate physical feelings that create health and wellness concerns. These “pains of employment” support calls to improve prison space. However, these sensations conflate with perceptions of space, which infer that prisoners, not infrastructure, create poor environments. Such pe…
Mettre en lumière la lumière
Dans cet article, nous analysons l’expérience et les préoccupations des agents correctionnels (AC) canadiens fédéraux concernant leur environnement de travail. En nous appuyant sur la géographie carcérale, et en reconnaissant l’importance des liens entre l’architecture, les aménagements physiques et l’expérience vécue de l’espace, nous avons étudié l’effet de la lumière (ou de son absence) sur l’environnement de travail et le bien-être des AC. Le…
Critiquing the Conception of “Crimes Against Nature”
Drawing upon historical developments and legal interpretations of “crimes against nature” as it relates to bestiality, this paper endeavors to promote further discussions surrounding the conception of “natural” and/or extant law, by which an understanding of historical and modern objections to crimes against nature opens them up to the critique of thin-universalism—that is, that despite disparate socio-moral fundaments, laws of prohibition coales…
Portable Prisons
Portable Prisons is an exploration of the electronic monitoring of offenders based on an ethnographic case study from Scotland. Through interviews and observations, Gacek demonstrates this technology is representative of the carceral state’s overreaching punitive capabilities, rejecting the idea that “soft” punishment is related to decarceration
Learning about the Illegal and the “Lawful yet Awful”
In this article, we focus on the teaching of criminology in the university classroom. Considering the recent debates on “public criminology,” we examine teaching as a method of reaching more “publics.” As university educators we recognize “students are our first public” (Burawoy, 2008, p. 8) and as criminologists we want to rethink the form of instruction and the means of delivery of a criminological education. Yet this pedagogical picture is not…
We’re both here to do a job and that’s all that matters’
Reflecting on new trans prisoner placement policies within Canadian federal prisons, in light of recent changes instigated under the Canadian Liberal Trudeau government, we provide knowledge from cisgender correctional officer (CO) recruits regarding these policy changes and underscore their views of working with officers who identify as transgender. Canada’s new policies recognize the presence of trans prisoners and create new protocols accordin…
Canadian Public Safety Personnel and Occupational Stressors
Canadian public safety personnel (e.g., correctional workers, firefighters) experience potential stressors as a function of their occupation. Occupational stressors can include organizational (e.g., job context) and operational (e.g., job content) elements. Operational stressors (e.g., exposures to potentially psychologically traumatic events) may be inevitable, but opportunities may exist to mitigate other occupational stressors for public safet…
Animals as Something More Than Mere Property
Our article argues that non-human animals deserve to be treated as something more than property to be abused, exploited, or expended. Such an examination lies at the heart of green criminology and law—an intersection of which we consider more thoroughly. Drawing upon our respective and collective works, we endeavor to engage in a discussion that highlights the significance of green criminology for law and suggests how law can provide opportunitie…
Persistent puzzles
Research Summary In our article, we attend to the implied outlooks (“philosophies” in the sense of operative practical discourses and assumptions) and the competing ethical concerns that animate differing views on privatizing corrections. We consider some normative arguments and empirical observations that have been mobilized for and against privatization since the inception of the modern version of this debate in the late 1980s, and we seek to p…
The ‘Frozen’ Heart of the Continent
Within Canadian national cinema, audiences view places that draw attention to the shared experience of being within these geopolitical, socio-spatial locations. This paper contends that crime films set in Winnipeg, a city situated in the centre of North America, reflect and contribute to the cultural identity of the city within the national imaginary. Place-myths have the potential to construct meanings about a particular place, indicating whethe…
The ‘Frozen’ Heart of the Continent
Brands play an imperative role when representing places, as culture and the people who live and create it are at the core of the brand. Aside from promoting experiences and destinations, place brands enhance culture and identity, and orchestrate space and atmosphere to create a particular ambiance in which societies are immersed. Over the past century, the representation of Canada in fictional film has generally emphasized its northerly location,…
Genocidal carcerality and Indian residential schools in Canada
This paper contributes to the criminology of genocide through examination of settler colonial destruction within the broader context of what we term ‘genocidal carcerality’. We employ this term to examine the ways in which space is implicated in the physical, biological, and cultural destruction of group life. In this paper, our purpose is not to create a typology of genocidal carcerality, but rather to demonstrate the multiplicity of spatial str…
Genocidal carcerality and Indian residential schools in Canada
This paper contributes to the criminology of genocide through examination of settler colonial destruction within the broader context of what we term ‘genocidal carcerality’. We employ this term to examine the ways in which space is implicated in the physical, biological, and cultural destruction of group life. In this paper, our purpose is not to create a typology of genocidal carcerality, but rather to demonstrate the multiplicity of spatial str…
We’re both here to do a job and that’s all that matters’
Reflecting on new trans prisoner placement policies within Canadian federal prisons, in light of recent changes instigated under the Canadian Liberal Trudeau government, we provide knowledge from cisgender correctional officer (CO) recruits regarding these policy changes and underscore their views of working with officers who identify as transgender. Canada’s new policies recognize the presence of trans prisoners and create new protocols accordin…
The ‘Frozen’ Heart of the Continent
Within Canadian national cinema, audiences view places that draw attention to the shared experience of being within these geopolitical, socio-spatial locations. This paper contends that crime films set in Winnipeg, a city situated in the centre of North America, reflect and contribute to the cultural identity of the city within the national imaginary. Place-myths have the potential to construct meanings about a particular place, indicating whethe…
The ‘Frozen’ Heart of the Continent
Brands play an imperative role when representing places, as culture and the people who live and create it are at the core of the brand. Aside from promoting experiences and destinations, place brands enhance culture and identity, and orchestrate space and atmosphere to create a particular ambiance in which societies are immersed. Over the past century, the representation of Canada in fictional film has generally emphasized its northerly location,…
Genocidal carcerality and Indian residential schools in Canada
This paper contributes to the criminology of genocide through examination of settler colonial destruction within the broader context of what we term ‘genocidal carcerality’. We employ this term to examine the ways in which space is implicated in the physical, biological, and cultural destruction of group life. In this paper, our purpose is not to create a typology of genocidal carcerality, but rather to demonstrate the multiplicity of spatial str…
Persistent puzzles
Research Summary In our article, we attend to the implied outlooks (“philosophies” in the sense of operative practical discourses and assumptions) and the competing ethical concerns that animate differing views on privatizing corrections. We consider some normative arguments and empirical observations that have been mobilized for and against privatization since the inception of the modern version of this debate in the late 1980s, and we seek to p…
Canadian Public Safety Personnel and Occupational Stressors
Canadian public safety personnel (e.g., correctional workers, firefighters) experience potential stressors as a function of their occupation. Occupational stressors can include organizational (e.g., job context) and operational (e.g., job content) elements. Operational stressors (e.g., exposures to potentially psychologically traumatic events) may be inevitable, but opportunities may exist to mitigate other occupational stressors for public safet…
Animals as Something More Than Mere Property
Our article argues that non-human animals deserve to be treated as something more than property to be abused, exploited, or expended. Such an examination lies at the heart of green criminology and law—an intersection of which we consider more thoroughly. Drawing upon our respective and collective works, we endeavor to engage in a discussion that highlights the significance of green criminology for law and suggests how law can provide opportunitie…
Learning about the Illegal and the “Lawful yet Awful”
In this article, we focus on the teaching of criminology in the university classroom. Considering the recent debates on “public criminology,” we examine teaching as a method of reaching more “publics.” As university educators we recognize “students are our first public” (Burawoy, 2008, p. 8) and as criminologists we want to rethink the form of instruction and the means of delivery of a criminological education. Yet this pedagogical picture is not…
We’re both here to do a job and that’s all that matters’
Reflecting on new trans prisoner placement policies within Canadian federal prisons, in light of recent changes instigated under the Canadian Liberal Trudeau government, we provide knowledge from cisgender correctional officer (CO) recruits regarding these policy changes and underscore their views of working with officers who identify as transgender. Canada’s new policies recognize the presence of trans prisoners and create new protocols accordin…
Critiquing the Conception of “Crimes Against Nature”
Drawing upon historical developments and legal interpretations of “crimes against nature” as it relates to bestiality, this paper endeavors to promote further discussions surrounding the conception of “natural” and/or extant law, by which an understanding of historical and modern objections to crimes against nature opens them up to the critique of thin-universalism—that is, that despite disparate socio-moral fundaments, laws of prohibition coales…
Portable Prisons
Portable Prisons is an exploration of the electronic monitoring of offenders based on an ethnographic case study from Scotland. Through interviews and observations, Gacek demonstrates this technology is representative of the carceral state’s overreaching punitive capabilities, rejecting the idea that “soft” punishment is related to decarceration
The “Pains of Employment”? Connecting Air and Sound Quality to Correctional Officer Experiences of Health and Wellness in Prison Space
This article highlights Canadian federal correctional officers’ (COs) sensory engagements with their workplace to reveal how, in particular, air quality and sound quality generate physical feelings that create health and wellness concerns. These “pains of employment” support calls to improve prison space. However, these sensations conflate with perceptions of space, which infer that prisoners, not infrastructure, create poor environments. Such pe…
Mettre en lumière la lumière
Dans cet article, nous analysons l’expérience et les préoccupations des agents correctionnels (AC) canadiens fédéraux concernant leur environnement de travail. En nous appuyant sur la géographie carcérale, et en reconnaissant l’importance des liens entre l’architecture, les aménagements physiques et l’expérience vécue de l’espace, nous avons étudié l’effet de la lumière (ou de son absence) sur l’environnement de travail et le bien-être des AC. Le…
Islamophobia and the Benefits and Challenges for Prison Imams
Increasingly, religion plays a significant role in the rehabilitation of inmates across the US and Canada. While there is no shortage of literature on the effects of religion within penal institutions, there is a lacuna of scholarship dealing with Islam in carceral spaces. American and Canadian prisons offer unique opportunities to understand the relationship between Muslim chaplains and the prison experience more broadly. Based upon a substantiv…
Youth and Young Terror
Focusing on developments within Canadian jurisprudence, the authors explore significant case law and its impact on our understanding of the challenges faced by youth and young offenders convicted of terrorism offences while navigating the legal and correctional systems. We demonstrate how Canadian law has often failed to address the needs and lived experiences of youth and young offenders convicted of terrorism offences while dealing with legal s…
The agricultural prison industry
Prison farms are common programs within correctional services; however, knowledge is limited regarding the agricultural prison industry. As a starting point for further study and policy development, we conducted a scoping review to map knowledge on the industry. The results show many publications focused on the agricultural prison industry were outdated, United States-based, and/or non-original research. Findings reveal agricultural positions ten…
Exposing the elephant in the room? Connecting speciesism to Canadian animal welfare legislation
Speciesism is a form of discrimination resulting in the unequal treatment of non-human animals based on the perceptions of human beings. This article aims to make a connection between speciesism and animal welfare legislation, focusing on how animal welfare protections are impacted by the anthropocentric views of specific animal species. We draw upon scholarship, legislation, and Canadian case law and examples to do so. While there is significant…
Political science (12 works) · Criminology (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (7 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Prison (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Social Psychology (4 works) · Context (archaeology (3 works)