The forensic patient's moral career as a measure of institutional disciplinary processes

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative research conducted in a Canadian medium-security forensic psychiatric institution. The purpose of the study was to explore the way patient subjectivities are shaped in the admissions unit of the selected facility, using nursing progress notes as a primary source of data. More detailed findings from this study were published elsewhere. In this paper, I wish to focus specifically on the way a patient's course through the admissions unit begins a particular subjectivity-forming process described by Goffman as moral career. This paper discusses evidence, in nursing progress notes, of the onset of the patient's moral career. It also explores the way disciplinary power, devised by Foucault, is useful in understanding the establishment and the unfolding of the forensic subject's moral career.