{"product_id":"9781442626898","title":"A Special Hell: Institutional Life in Alberta's Eugenic Years","description":"\u003cp\u003eUsing rare interviews with former inmates and workers, institutional documentation, and governmental archives, Claudia Malacrida illuminates the dark history of the treatment of “mentally defective” children and adults in twentieth-century Alberta. Focusing on the Michener Centre in Red Deer, one of the last such facilities operating in Canada, \u003ci\u003eA Special Hell\u003c\/i\u003e is a sobering account of the connection between institutionalization and eugenics.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMalacrida explains how isolating the Michener Centre’s residents from their communities served as a form of passive eugenics that complemented the active eugenics program of the Alberta Eugenics Board. Instead of receiving an education, inmates worked for little or no pay – sometimes in homes and businesses in Red Deer – under the guise of vocational rehabilitation. The success of this model resulted in huge institutional growth, chronic crowding, and terrible living conditions that included both routine and extraordinary abuse.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCombining the powerful testimony of survivors with a detailed analysis of the institutional impulses at work at the Michener Centre, \u003ci\u003eA Special Hell\u003c\/i\u003e is essential reading for those interested in the disturbing past and troubling future of the institutional treatment of people with disabilities.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Toronto Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47043042476272,"sku":"9781442626898","price":32.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781442626898_p0.jpg?v=1763805688","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781442626898","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}