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Jessica Evans

Assistant Professor
JOR 815

Spotlight

Jessica Evans, Assistant Professor

Dr. Jessica Evans is a community engaged scholar whose research examines the causes, conditions, and consequences of incarceration in Canada, framed through anti-racist, decolonial, abolitionist and critical political economic theories. Dr. Evans holds a PhD from York University's Department of Political Science, supported by the SSHRC Joseph-Armond Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

Her most recent research was funded through a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant which, in collaboration with Prisoner HIV/AIDS Support Action Network, explored the impact of COVID-19 on incarcerated persons throughout Ontario. This research has been published in recent issues of Punishment and Society, and the Canadian Journal of Law and Society. 

Dr. Evans' previous work has been published widely, including in peer reviewed journals such as Citizenship Studies, the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, and Punishment and Society. She has also written numerous op-eds for outlets such as The Conversation and Spring Magazine, and has conducted numerous media interviews on issues of incarcerated persons. She is a co-founder of the Toronto Prisoners' Rights Project, a member of the Abolition Coaliton. and has recently been certified through Walls to Bridges.

Education

University Degree
York, Political Science PhD
Carleton, Political Science MA
Carelton, Political Science  BA

Courses

Course Code Course Title
CRIM 515 Gendering Justice

Selected Publications

Peer Reviewed Articles

  • Evans, J. and House, J. (2023). A Prison is No Place for a Pandemic: Canadian Prisoners’ Collective Action in the Time of COVID-19. Punishment & Society.
  • Mussell, L. and Evans, J. (2023). Youth Carceral Deinstitutionalization and Transinstitutionalization: Recent Developments and Questions. Howard Journal of Crime and Justice.
  • Evans, J. and Mussell, L. (2023). Governing Risk Through Forced Confinement: Examining Canadian Carcerality During the Pandemic. The Canadian Journal of Law and Society.
  • Evans, J. (2021). Mediating Capitalism’s ‘Rules of Reproduction’ with Historical Agency: Political Marxism, Uneven and Combined Development and Settler-Capitalism in Canada. Historical Materialism, 29(3), 153-174.
  • Evans, J. (2021). Penal Nationalism in the Settler Colony: On the Construction and Maintenance of ‘National Whiteness’ in Settler Canada. Punishment & Society, 23(4), 515-535.
  • Evans, J. (2020). Crisis, Capital Accumulation and the ‘Crimmigration’ Fix in the Aftermath of the Global Slump. Citizenship Studies, 25(2), 188-202.
  • Evans, J. and Costa, L. (2020). The Need for Gender-Based Analysis in Women’s Forensic Healthcare. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 99(3), 52-77.
  • Evans, J. (2016). The Uneven and Combined Development of Class Forces: Migration as Combined Development. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 29(3), 1061-1073.
  • Evans, J. (2010). The Neoliberal Turn in the SADC: Regional Integration and Disintegration.

 

Book Chapters

  • Evans, J. (2022). Crisis, Capital Accumulation and the ‘Crimmigration’ Fix in the Aftermath of the Global Slump. In (eds. Sharry Aiken and Stephanie Silverman) A World Without Cages: Bridging Immigration and Prison Justice. Routledge, NY.
  • Evans, J., Fricker, A., and Hoilett, R. (2022). We Keep Each Other Safe: Organizing for Prison Abolition during a Pandemic, in (eds. Walby, K. and Pasternak, S.) Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada. Between the Lines Books, Toronto.
  • Evans, J. (2019). The Neoliberal Turn in the SADC: Regional Integration and Disintegration. Reprinted in Africa Matters: Cultural Politics, Political Economies & Grammars of Protest (Eds. Adesanmi and Rutherford), Daraja Press.
  • Evans, J. (2019). Colonialism(s), Race, and the Transition to Capitalism in Canada. In (Eds. Post, C. and LaFrance, X.) Case Studies in the Origins of Capitalism, 191-213, Palgrave, Macmillan.
  • Evans, J. (2016). Rejecting the ‘Staples’ Thesis and Re-Centring Migration: A Comparative Analysis of ‘Late Development’ in Canada and Argentina. In, (Eds. Anievas, A. and Matin, K.) Historical Sociology and World History, 127-148, Brill, London.

 

Editorials

  • Mussel, L. and Evans, J. (2023). Immigration detention continues in Canada despite the end of provincial agreements. The Conversation.
  • Mussel, L. and Evans, J. (2022). Imprisoned Citizens Face Barriers to Voting in Ontario. The Conversation.
  • Evans, J. and Mussel, L. (2022). How Prisons are Using COVID-19 Containment Measures as a Guise for Torture. The Conversation.
  • Aquino, G., Evans, J. and Jennings, L. (2021). National Day of Action: Free Them all. Spring Magazine.
  • Evans, J. (2020). Capitalism, Prisons and COVID-19: On ‘Surplus Labour’. Spring Magazine.
  • Dobson, L., Evans, J. and Lee, A. (2020). Bell Let’s Talk About Disconnection and Suicides in Ontario Jails. Spring Magazine.
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