Counseling Women Offenders

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Counseling Women Offenders

• What can we learn from our studies of women
  prisoners?

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Studies of Women in Texas Prisons

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

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Similarities to Men Prisoners

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

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Differences Between Male Female Inmates

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

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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

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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

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Most problematic drug for women?

• Crack cocaine

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Their Story.

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

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Results.

• Drug Dependence
• Arrest
• Incarceration

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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!

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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.

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

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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

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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

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Biology is Destiny

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

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Intensive Surveillance of Females

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

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• 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.

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

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

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