Prisoners Accessing Relational Connections with Dogs: A Just Outcome of the St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog Program at Stony Mountain Institution

Abstract

Prisoner mental health is a serious concern across the globe, and increasing inmates’ access to relational connections with domestic animals is a unique and emerging response. This article presents the just outcome of an evaluation of the St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog Program at a medium-security federal correctional institution in Canada. Interviews were held with a purposive sample of 10 therapy dog program participants, 3 therapy dog handlers and the institutional program coordinator. We found that the therapy dogs were perceived to offer a form of love and support to the participants, achieving the objectives of the therapy dog program in an environment where access to relational connections with dogs is denied. This denial is posited as unjust because other-than-human relationships can be significant to some individuals’ mental health. Love was experienced by the inmates as an effortless and reciprocal closeness with the therapy dogs and with no external expectations. Support was experienced by the participants as trustworthy communication, meaningful motivation and a sense of grounding, all difficult to achieve while incarcerated. We found that the relational connections between the participants and therapy dogs benefitted the inmates’ mental health, and offered insight on addressing two challenges commonly faced by correctional institutions: mandatory programming and hypermasculinity.