Female Imprisonment

This book is a reflection on the nature of confinement, experienced by prison inmates as everyday life. It explores the meanings, purposes, and consequences involved with spending every day inside prison. Female Imprisonment results from an ethnographic study carried out in a small prison facility located in the south of Portugal, and Frois uses the data to analyze how incarcerated women talk about their lives, crimes, and expectations. Crucially, this work examines how these women consider prison: rather than primarily being a place of confinement designed to inflict punishment, it can equally be a place of transformation that enables them to regain a sense of selfhood. From in-depth ethnographic research involving close interaction with the prison population, in which inmates present their life histories marked by poverty, violence, and abuse (whether as victims, as agents, or both), Frois observes that the traditional idea of “doing time”, in the sense of a strenuous, repressive, or restrictive experience, is paradoxically transformed into “having time” – an experience of expanded self-awareness, identity reconstruction, or even of deliverance. Ultimately, this engaging and compassionate study questions and defies customary accounts of the impact of prisons on those subjected to incarceration, and as such it will be of great interest for scholars and students of penology and the criminal justice system.

In both the UK and the rest of the world there have been rapid increases in the numbers of women in prison, which has led to an acceleration of interest in women's crimes and the social control of women, and women's experience of both prison and the criminal justice system is very different to men's. This text is concerned to address the key issues relating to women's imprisonment, contributing at the same time to an understanding of prison issues in general and the historical and contemporary politics of gender and penal justice. What are women's prisons for? What are they like? Why are lone mothers, ethnic minority and very poor women disproportionately represented in the women's prison population? Should babies be sent to prison with their mothers? These are amongst the issues with which this book is concerned. Analysing Women's Imprisonment is written as an introductory text to the subject, aiming to guide students of penology carefully through the main historical and contemporary discourses on women's imprisonment. Each chapter has a clear summary ('concepts to know'), essay questions and recommendations for further reading, and will help students prepare confidently for seminars, course examinations and project work.

The story of the rise of prisons and development of prison systems in the United States has been studied extensively in scholarship, but the experiences of female inmates in these institutions have not received the same attention. Historically, women incarcerated in prison, jails, and reformatories accounted for a small number of inmates across the United States. Early on, they were often held in prisons alongside men and faced neglect, exploitation, and poor living conditions. Various attempts to reform them, ranging from moral instruction and education to domestic training, faced opposition at times from state officials, prison employees, and even male prison reformers. Due to the consistent small populations and relative neglect the women often faced, their experiences in prison have been understudied. This collection of essays seeks to recapture the perspective on women’s prison experience from a range of viewpoints. This edited collection will explore the challenges women faced as inmates, their efforts to exert agency or control over their lives and bodies, how issues of race and social class influenced experiences, and how their experiences differed from that of male inmates. Contributions extend from the early nineteenth century into the twenty-first century to provide an opportunity to examine change over time with regards to female imprisonment. Furthermore, the chapters examine numerous geographic regions, allowing for readers to analyze how place and environment shapes the inmate experience.

Bringing together a range of international experts, this book contributes to the discourse on the penal system, human rights, equality and social injustice and facilitates a critical understanding of the impact of imprisonment on the lives of women.

A concise survey of the treatment of jailed women in America since the early 1800s, their unique problems, the effect on their families, and the state of prisons today. Focusing on an often overlooked subject, this volume explores women's incarceration, from the first women-only prison to modern state-of-the-art facilities. It explores controversies, problems, and solutions, such as excessive discipline, the lack of training programs, sexual abuse, medical services, and visitation policies. The book also investigates key issues such as the background of inmates, the disproportionate number of African American and Hispanic prisoners because of the "war on drugs," and how women cope with the separation from their children and families. A full chapter is devoted to important people and events, from the first female jail keeper in 1822 to changing prison goals and the impact of feminism.

Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Intersectional Inequality and Women's Imprisonment -- 2. Pathways and Intersecting Inequality -- 3. Prison Community, Prison Conditions, and Gendered Harm -- 4. Searching for Safety through Prison Capital -- 5. Inequalities and Contextual Conflict -- 6. Intersections of Inequality with Correctional Staff -- 7. Gendered Human Rights and the Search for Safety -- Appendix 1: Methodology -- Appendix 2: Tables of Findings -- Glossary -- B -- C -- D -- F -- G -- I -- J -- H -- J -- K -- L -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- W -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z

Few empirical studies have focused on women in prison. In the last few years, though, a number of studies have demonstrated that there are fundamental differences between male and female prisoners in an ever-changing penal system. Consequently, there has been a need for more comprehensive studies of female offenders for three primary reasons: (1) imperative research gaps remain to be bridged; (2) the female prison experience is not constant; and (3) prison rates for female offenders, especially minority offenders, have increased considerably in the last few years. A central goal of this book, then, is to provide a balance to the existing literature and research on female prisoners in the United States and, to an extent, abroad, focusing primarily on female offenders and using data gathered from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. The book utilizes a comprehensive investigative approach by equating the experience of female offenders by the totality of circumstances within an historical, institutional, political, and ideological context. The critical objective is to offer an inclusive analysis of the things that are considered by female inmates to be the most significant before, during, and after their incarceration, as a way of better understanding the reasons that lead to their first incarceration as well as subsequent incarcerations. By reading this book, the reader will have a greater understanding of the many challenges facing female inmates, as well as the relationship between inmates, correctional officers and, by extension, society in general. Also provided is a series of policy recommendations throughout the book, particularly in the concluding chapter and epilogue.

“Essential reading” on some of the most egregious human rights violations within women’s prisons in the United States (Piper Kerman, author of Orange is the New Black) Here, in their own words, thirteen women recount their lives leading up to incarceration and their harrowing struggle for survival once insides. Among the narrators: Theresa, who spent years believing her health and life were in danger, being aggressively treated with a variety of medications for a disease she never had. Only on her release did she discover that an incompetent prison medical bureaucracy had misdiagnosed her with HIV. Anna, who repeatedly warned apathetic prison guards about a suicidal cellmate. When the woman killed herself, the guards punished Anna in an attempt to silence her and hide their own negligence. Teri, who was sentenced to up to fifty years for aiding and abetting a robbery when she was only seventeen. A prison guard raped Teri, who was still a teenager, and the assaults continued for years with the complicity of other staff.

Oklahoma has long held the dubious honor of having the highest female incarceration rate in the country, nearly twice the national average. In this compelling new book, sociologist Susan Sharp sets out to discover just what has gone so wrong in the state of Oklahoma—and what that might tell us about trends in female incarceration nationwide. The culmination of over a decade of original research, Mean Lives, Mean Laws exposes a Kafkaesque criminal justice system, one that has no problem with treating women as collateral damage in the War on Drugs or with stripping female prisoners of their parental rights. Yet it also reveals the individual histories of women who were jailed in Oklahoma, providing intimate portraits of their lives before, during, and after their imprisonment. We witness the impoverished and abusive conditions in which many of these women were raised; we get a vivid portrait of their everyday lives behind bars; and we glimpse the struggles that lead many ex-convicts to fall back into the penal system. Through an innovative methodology that combines statistical rigor with extensive personal interviews, Sharp shows how female incarceration affects not only individuals, but also families and communities. Putting a human face on a growing social problem, Mean Lives, Mean Laws raises important questions about both the state of Oklahoma and the state of the nation.

An award-winning investigative journalist examines increasing rates of women imprisonment in today's America, in a report that draws on interviews with inmates, correctional officers, and administrators to offer insight into the societal impact of female incarceration. Original.