Female Functions

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Chapter 15

• Female Functions

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Central California Womens Facility worlds
largest female prison Chowchilla, Ca.
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Death row in a womens prisonCentral California
Womens Facility
death row (holding 12 women) is the small,
screened portion of an administrative segregation
unit
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why women tend to be the forgotten offenders

• women commit fewer crimes than men
• female criminality tends to be less serious than
  male criminality
• historically, women have tended more often than
  men to be excluded from the justice system, by
  lenient treatment
• women constitute a small proportion of the
  correctional population (6)
• popular social attitude tends to put all females
  in a subservient position

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Institutionalized sexismcaused by low status
of female criminality

• womens prisons are located farther from friends
  family, inhibiting visits, especially for the
  poor
• womens prisons lack diverse educational,
  vocational, and other programs available in mens
  prisons
• womens prisons lack specialization in treatment
  and fail to segregate offenders who present
  special problems or have special needs

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women (vs. men) doing time
of adult inmates
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more women doing time
increase in men vs. women in state federal
prisons, from 1990
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gender and crime whos arrested for what?
proportion of men vs. women arrested for specific
index crimes
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evolution of womens prisons
END of reformatory movement ran its course by
1935 no new correctional models
1st female-run prison for women Indiana, 1873 run
for women, by women
Alderson Prison West Virginia, 1927 1st federal
prison for women. Mary Belle Harris, warden
House of Shelter Detroit, post civil war 1st
reformatory for women. run by Zebulon Brockway
Elizabeth Fry 1780 - 1845 1st to press for reform
in treatment of women children
Womens Prison Asso. New York, 1844 created to
improve treatment of separate females from male
inmates
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female prison reform in 1800s guiding principles

• separation of women from men
• provision of differential care for women
• management of womens prisons by female staff

plan . . .
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features distinguishing female from male prisons
womens prisons
shorter sentences
smaller
less committed to inmate code
looser security
inmate-staff relations less structured
less developed underground economy
less physical violence
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female inmate profiles

• predominately Black (46) or White (36)
• between ages of 25 - 34 (50)
• never married (45)
• some high school (46) or graduated (23)
• Similar to characteristics of male inmates

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women and men doing time, by commitment offense
types of crime women (vs. men) are serving time
for
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female prison subcultures (per Heffernan)

• square (like gleaning)
• situational offender
• adheres to conventional norms values
• the life (like jailing)
• persistent offenders
• act in prison as they did on the outside
• antisocial, stand firm against authority
• represent about half of female prisoners
• cool (like doing time)
• professionals controlled manipulative keep
  busy, play around, stay out of trouble and get
  out

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pseudo-families

• a distinguishing hallmark of the subculture in
  many womens prisons (as compared with mens)
• women often cope with the stresses of
  incarceration by bonding together in extended
  families of convenience.
• different women play the roles of various members
  of the family, including father, mother,
  siblings, grandchildren, even cousins

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key issues in the incarceration of women

• educational vocational training
• female programs tend to reflect stereotypical
  female occupations
• womens programs less ambitious than mens
• medical services
• women have more serious health problems
• mothers their children
• 167,000 American children (2/3 of whom are under
  10) have a mother in jail or prison
• 65 of incarcerated mothers were single
  caretakers of minor children.

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official sexual misconduct in prison

• number of cases of misconduct by male officers in
  on increase, with increase in female inmates
• eg, Houston Cagle Susan Smith, 2000
• Officers may abuse authority to compel sex by
  withholding goods and privileges to prisoners or
  by rewarding them with same
• 42 states have enacted legislation prohibiting
  sexual misconduct