A Survivor’s Narrative of Institutional Harms Experienced in Manitoba Developmental Centre and Prisons in Canada

Abstract

This thesis is a case study that looks at the life story of a Black man, Dwight, who had been institutionalized at the Manitoba Developmental Centre (MDC) at the age of eleven in 1967 for three years. Dwight alleges that he experienced physical and sexual abuse, which led him to using violence as self-defence against older patients until he was expelled from the institution. Shortly thereafter, Dwight entered the correctional institutions in Canada, being incarcerated in sixteen prisons after the MDC. This thesis applies Goffman’s (1961) theory of “total institutions” and critical disability theories. These theories are used to contextualize Dwight’s perspective of his experiences on the processes of institutionalization, roles in institutions, and the social construction of disabilities. Oral history or life story interviews were conducted with Dwight to gain insight regarding his institutional experiences. These life story interviews cover his life prior to institutionalization at the MDC, his time inside, and his life in the community. There are several research contributions and implications. This case study provides an outline of the Black experiences in institutions for persons with disabilities. Other research contributions are that misdiagnosis does occur and in this case was socially constructed based on the time period of the 1960s. This study contributes to research that shows that race may affect the experiences of labelling as current studies reveal that Black youth continue to be more likely to be assigned a disability diagnosis when compared to their white peers. Finally, the importance of oral history as a methodology provides rich detail and new knowledge from lived experiences that other methods may not provide in the fields of sociology, criminology, and history. Future research with survivors of MDC and other institutions may benefit using oral history as it is flexible and allows for participants to share as much as they wish. This method of inquiry also allows interviewees to be heard as persons with lived experiences of disabilities have experienced marginalization in the historical narrative of institutions.