The Prescription to Prison Pipeline with Michelle Smirnova
Episode 117 - October 9, 2023
Michelle Smirnova (University of Missouri-Kansas City) returns to the podcast to discuss her new book on drugs and prison in the United States, The Prescription to Prison Pipeline.The interview begins with a discussion of medicalization, and then generally follows the title of her book. The first part focuses on prescription drugs, touching also on subjects such as biomedicalization. The opioid epidemic and the so-called War on Drugs are linked to imprisonment in the United States. Finally, the pipeline section reflects upon structural issues that link drugs to imprisonment. Michelle also discusses some of the ethical concerns in working with incarcerated individuals.
Further Reading
- Michelle Smirnova. The Prescription-to-Prison-Pipeline: The Medicalization & Criminalization of Pain. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2023.
- Keith Wailoo. Pain: A Political History. Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
- Anthony Ryan Hatch, Silent Cells: The Secret Drugging of Captive America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.
- Joseph Dumit. Drugs for Life: How Pharmaceutical Companies Define Our Health, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2012.
- Jill McCorkel, Breaking Women: Gender, Race, and the New Politics of Imprisonment, New York University Press: New York, 2012.
Our Guests
Michelle Smirnova
Associate Professor of Sociology – Humanities and Social Sciences – University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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