Women Prisoners

1
Women Prisoners Victimization
2
What is the relationship between maltreatment,
substance abuse, and criminality? Does the
relationship differ for males and females?
3
Hypotheses

• Maltreatment during childhood and adulthood will
  be greater among female than male inmates
• Childhood maltreatment will be more strongly
  related to adult depression for female inmates.
• Depression will be more prevalent among females.

4
Hypotheses

• Substance use (presumably as a means of
  self-medication) will be more highly associated
  with maltreatment for female than male inmates.
• The severity of substance misuse and problems
  associated with misuse will be stronger
  predictors of female rates of criminal activity
  than male rates.

5
Why would we hypothesize that there will be
differences in womens and mens maltreatment and
their responses to it?
6
What have earlier studies shown?
7
Literature Review

• Females experience more frequent and more serious
  victimization than males.
• Women are more likely than men to react to sexual
  victimization with self-blame and depression.

8
Literature Review

• Depression is far more common among women than
  men.
• Abused females are more likely to respond to a
  depressed mood with thoughts that contribute to
  the perpetuation of the mood, whereas males
  engage in instrumental behaviors that distract
  them from depression.

9
Carol Gilligan writes

• In early adolescence girls begin edging toward
  relinquishing what they know and what they have
  held fast to, as they come face to face with a
  social construction of reality that is at odds
  with their experience, so that some kind of
  dissociation becomes inevitable.

10
Carol Gilligan writes

• Girls initiation or passage into adulthood in a
  world psychologically rooted and historically
  anchored in the experiences of powerful men marks
  the beginning of self-doubt and the dawning of
  the realization, no matter how fleeting, that
  womanhood will require a dissociative split
  between experience and what is generally taken to
  be reality.

11
What did our studies of women prisoners in Texas
show?
12
Studies of Women in Texas Prisons

• Who are these women?
• What is life like for these women behind
• bars?

13
Similarities to Men Prisoners

• 32 years old
• Minority
• Poor
• Single Parent of 2 children
• High School Dropout

14
Differences Between Male Female Inmates

• Females experienced more abuse than males
• Frequent physical, emotional, sexual abuse
• Frequently felt unloved, unsafe and in danger

15
Female Prisoners in Texas

• 1/2 reported childhood abuse
• 3/4 experienced abuse as adults
• 1/2 reported being violently attacked
• 1/3 were sexually abused as adults
• 1/2 had partners who had substance abuse or
  psychiatric problems

16
Did you know?

• Women who were abused as children are more likely
  than men to be depressed as adults.
• 1/2 of the women were substance dependent
• Drug dependence more likely to lead to criminal
  behavior in women than men

17
Most problematic drug for women?

• Crack cocaine

18
Crack in particular, offers the equivalent of a
born-again metamorphosis.
19
Instantaneously, the user is transformed from an
unemployed, depressed high school dropout,
despised by the world--and secretly convinced
that her failure is due to her own inherent
stupidity and disorganization.
20

• There is a rush of heart-palpitating pleasure,
  followed by a jaw-gnashing crash and wide-eyed
  alertness that provides her life with concrete
  purpose.
• Get more crack--fast!

21
The Story of the Women in our Study.

• A poor girl
• Victimized in childhood
• Increasingly victimized in adulthood
• Feels powerless and low
• Suffers depression
• Self-medicates to relieve her misery

22
Results.

• Drug Dependence
• Arrest
• Incarceration

23
There are theories that help us to understand
this story.
24
Seligmans Learned Helplessness Theory

• There is a relationship between powerlessness and
  depression.
• People who come to expect that they have little
  if any control over important outcomes in their
  lives tend to develop symptoms of depression.

25
What experiences would lead to a sense of
helplessness in women?

• Victimization and subtle ways women are made to
  feel less than.

26
Lenore Walkers Extension of Learned Helplessness

• A stance of learned helplessness actually
  increases the likelihood of a woman being
  battered.
• Battered woman syndrome and learned helplessness
  are linked to post-traumatic stress disorder.

27

• Females are more likely than males to react to
  sexual victimization with self-blame and
  depression.

28
Carol Gilligans work on womens distinctive
voice suggests that

• Womens response to maltreatment may be a
  function of their greater self-critical morality
  (it must be my fault).

29
Womens Cognitive Style

• May be more maladaptive than mens.
• Womens thinking makes them more vulnerable to
  depression.
• Once depression sets in, womens response tends
  to perpetuate the mood.

30
Mens Cognitive Style

• Mens instrumental behaviors distract them from
  it.
• Mens more active responses to their - mood may
  be more adaptive than womens less active
  responses.

31

• Women tend to turn their feelings inward against
  themselves in the form of anxiety and suicidal
  thoughts.
• Depression and maltreatment increase womens
  vulnerability to substance abuse.

32
Disparity in Treatment of Men Women in Texas

• Women received more disciplinary infractions than
  men!
• Rules are enforced in womens prisons and ignored
  in mens!

33
Some surprising findings

• 1322 women cited for violating written or posted
  rules compared with 9 men
• 350 women cited for possession of contraband
  compared with 41 men
• 43 instances of trafficking trading
• (sharing shampoo in the shower, lighting
  someones cigarette)
• They call is trafficking and trading, we call it
  caring and sharing.

34

• They call it trafficking and trading, we call it
  caring and sharing.

35
How does it happen?

• In a year women prisoners incurred an average of
  15 citations/men less than 3
• Almost 1/3 of the women receive 21 or more,
  compared to only 2 of the men

36
How is it possible?

• Female inmates received 85 of the most severe
  disciplinary punishment
• solitary confinement,
• loss of good conduct time
• reduction in time-earning status

37
Biology is Destiny

• In Texas prisons gender determines what
  constitutes a disciplinary infraction.

38
Intensive Surveillance of Females

• An historical vestige
• Reflects the belief that women should conform to
  gender-based stereotypes stressing obedience,
  dependence, and deference

39

• The warden of the male prison stated that he
  effects an accommodation with male inmates, a
  tacit social contract of noninterference, in
  return for relative compliance with rules.
• The women wardens of the womens prisons demand
  total compliance with every rule on the books and
  punish violations through formal mechanisms.

40

• Women in prison are subject to an official system
  that carries the patriarchal pattern of social
  control to absurd lengths.

41

• As night follows day, omnipresent surveillance
  elicits the behavior it is installed to control...