Exploring moral categorizations and symbolic boundaries around people living with HIV in a correctional setting

Abstract

For people living with HIV, correctional facilities, such as jails, prisons, and remand centers in Canada are complex environments at the intersection of health, justice, social, and criminal systems. Turning toward experiences, I explore my stories and observations of working with people living with HIV as a registered nurse in a large correctional facility in Western Canada. Based upon a narrative understanding of experience, I inquire into these stories and observations through the application of Mary Douglas’ theoretical work on purity versus impurity and Michèle Lamont’s symbolic boundary work. I engage in a reflective dialogue with the newfound meanings and understandings produced and discuss significant personal, practice-based, social, and policy-based insights within the context of my nurse researcher-practitioner role. This dialogue draws attention and raises questions about social practices, HIV-related stigma, correctional nursing, and the particularities of life evident within correctional facilities. Clinical implications for correctional nurses are discussed.