A Special Hell: Institutional Life in Alberta's Eugenic Years

by Claudia Malacrida

Using 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, A Special Hell is a sobering account of the connection between institutionalization and eugenics. Malacrida 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. Combining the powerful testimony of survivors with a detailed analysis of the institutional impulses at work at the Michener Centre, A Special Hell is essential reading for those interested in the disturbing past and troubling future of the institutional treatment of people with disabilities.

Genres: Canada

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 2015

Reviews

[Join the Penguin Resistance! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review:  A SPECIAL HELL by Claudia Malacrida

Subtitled "Institutional Life in Alberta’s Eugenic Years," this extensively-researched nonfiction work is an examination of the horrible conditions and sometimes well-meaning intent but misguided in practice, treatment of "mentally I'll" or "mentally defective" young persons, in the Alberta Province of Canada.  In a period of the 20th Century when eugenics was a ruling principle in Germany and lauded in certain U.S. universities, Alberta institutions used sterilization as a pragmatic tool in the treatment of the allegedly "mentally ill."  Reading this exposition dry-eyed is a virtual impossibility, yet it is essential reading for historical purposes and contemporary sociological and psychological debates.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Claudia researched and disseminated a clear and important history of institutional abuses perpetuated towards intellectually challenged people, or those erroneously diagnosed as such. The value of this information cannot be overstated. We need to continue remembering this history so as to not only not repeat it, but it continue advocating for respectful, proper support, resources, and treatment of people with intellectual disabilities.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book reads like a university thesis. I would have liked to have heard more from the survivers and less analysis. It's a hard topic to cover but overall it was handled well.

[Ella Drayton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very heartbreaking book. Reading about all of the abuse and neglect will make your heart hurt but realizing that what you're reading is not a work of fiction is what will really break your heart. It's so sad that such a reality exists where people who need help to make it through their daily lives end up being taken advantage of and mistreated because of heartless individuals who do not view these people as actual people. Very sad but very enlightening read.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was interesting to read, little dry at times, but defiantly an eye opener. I worked for two weeks on an practicum there in the 80's, was not somewhere I wanted to work.
Found this book helped me to understand the situation there better!