“Their System is Their System and You Fit Into It”: An Exploration of Professionals’ Experiences Supporting d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing People in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Prisons.

d/Deaf and hard of hearing people are disproportionately over-represented in prisons worldwide.

There is a dearth of literature on the experiences of incarcerated d/Deaf and hard of hearing people, but existing literature is clear that this cohort experiences barriers during incarceration.

This research responds to the gap in literature, seeking a deeper qualitative understanding of the nature of supports for d/Deaf and hard of hearing people in prison in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This research examines the experiences of d/Deaf and hard of hearing people incarcerated in Aotearoa New Zealand and asks what barriers this cohort faces to accessing health and mental wellbeing care, what creates these barriers, and what support is needed.

This deeper qualitative understanding derives from semi-structured interviews with six professionals who support d/Deaf and hard of hearing people who are, or have been, incarcerated in Aotearoa New Zealand. These professionals have been working in their respective fields for decades and are either Deaf or work closely with the Deaf community, necessitating the use of New Zealand Sign Language in some interviews. Participant's experiences were analysed within the context of settler colonialism, audism, and oralism.

This thesis found prisons are a site of harm where d/Deaf and hard of hearing people experience barriers to accessing support for mental wellbeing and health care, as well as to accessing entertainment, grievance processes, and rehabilitation programs. Findings include that prison is audist-centric, the state creates and enforces barriers to health care for d/Deaf and hard of hearing people, communication is important but interpreters are not uniformly provided, and that these realities are detrimental to d/Deaf and hard of hearing people’s wellbeing. Participants’ calls for change, at an interpersonal, policy, state, and legislative level, echoed those of the existing literature. Highlighting d/Deaf and hard of hearing people’s negative experiences of incarceration has implications for how prisons regard human rights in their policies and practices. This thesis encourages ethical research in this space, honouring d/Deaf and hard of hearing people’s unique culture and characteristics.