SOCY's Annual William Form Lecture

When:
Fri, Mar 29, 2024 - 2:15PM
to
Fri, Mar 29, 2024 - 3:45PM

Where:
Benjamin Banneker A, Stamp Student Union

Host:
Department of Sociology

Speakers:
Michelle Smirnova

 

The William Form Lecture was established in tribute to the scholarly contributions and generous support of the Department's first and most accomplished Ph.D. recipient (1944). The Form Lecture invites alumni from our graduate program back to campus each spring to give a presentation about their current research. 

The 2024 William Form Lecture is titled: "The Prescription-to-Prison Pipeline: Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain"

ABSTRACT
In recent decades, journalists, policymakers, and families have lamented the so-called “opioid epidemic,” or the rise in opioid-related overdose in the US. In so doing, fingers of blame have been pointed in every direction: from the Sackler family to regulatory bodies like the FDA, unscrupulous doctors to drug cartels to the users or drugs themselves. But opioids are not a recent invention, neither are psychotropics or other prescription drugs whose nonmedical use has also increased precipitously in the last 20 years. What then accounts for this rise in the use and prosecution of prescription drugs? Based upon interviews with 80 incarcerated men and women, it becomes clear that increases in prescription drug use, overdose, and arrest reflect heightened pain experienced by those marginalized by society and the ways that medical and carceral institutions exacerbate—rather than remedy—that pain. In this talk, I explore (1) how certain groups are trapped in a nexus of too-little and too-much healthcare and policing, (2) how they seek to cope with structural harms, and (3) how their attempts are often punished, further intensifying pain and theB likelihood of incarceration or overdose.

BIO
Michelle Smirnova is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Affiliate Faculty member of the Race, Ethnic, & Gender Studies department at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She is a sociologist whose research spans topics related to medicine, science, knowledge & technology studies, social movements and everyday resistance, and qualitative methods. Her first book, The Prescription-to-Prison Pipeline: An Intersectional Analysis of the Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain (Duke University Press 2023) explores the upstream causes of the “opioid epidemic” by drawing upon interviews with eighty individuals who have been incarcerated for reasons related to nonmedical prescription drug use. Her other work has been published in outlets such as Social Science & Medicine, Socius, Symbolic Interaction, and Qualitative Sociology. Currently, Dr. Smirnova is writing a book about KC Tenants, a tenant union and grassroots social movement organization fighting for housing justice.