P4W 25 Years Later: Memory, Art and Action

Abstract

The Prison for Women (P4W) in Kingston, Ontario was Canada’s only federal prison for women from 1934-2000. Just four years after P4W opened in 1934, the Archambault Report recommended its closure due to “disgraceful conditions”, yet it remained open until the year 2000. Since the closure of P4W, several federal women’s prisons have been opened across the country. 

We invite submissions reflecting on questions raised by the twenty-fifth anniversary of the closure of P4W.

1. Have you done time in a prison or healing lodge for women? Would you like to share art and/or write about the current conditions inside?
2. In your experience, what role does art play in survival and resistance within and outside women’s prisons in Canada?
3. If you were inside P4W, what do you remember and what do you try to forget? What has changed in women’s prisons since the closure of P4W and what has remained the same?

We especially invite contributions to this special issue from people who have been imprisoned in women’s prisons in Canada. We particularly invite people who were imprisoned at P4W and Kingston Penitentiary (e.g. Regional Treatment Centre) to send in submissions. We also encourage collaborative essays or dialogues between current/former prisonersand from people on the outside. If you are interested but want to chat first, please feel welcome to reach out to us (see contact information below.

These questions are especially pressing, given the sale of P4W to a private developer who plans to turn the prison into a mixture of residential, office and retail space. While P4W has been designated as a “recognized heritage building”, there has been little formal recognition of the site’s social history and its enduring impact on the lives of people who were imprisoned there.