Female Inmates' Perspectives on Sexual Abuse by Correctional Personnel

Abstract

Research into the sexual abuse of female inmates by correctional workers is scarce, despite documentation of its occurrence in prisons across the United States. This exploratory study examined dimensions of staff-inmate sexual contact in a correctional facility in Hawaii through two focus group interviews with imprisoned women. The women described three types of sexual abuse in prison: “trading,” “love,” and “in the line of duty.” Findings include the women's account of these forms of abuse and their perceptions of responsibility for staff-inmate sexual contact in correctional institutions. The women's beliefs about factors contributing to sexual abuse of female inmates, including job expectations of and power issues among adult correctional officers (ACO's), and the consequences of reporting abuse are also discussed. Given the vulnerability of female inmates and the power dynamics that typify the prison context, further research on this problem is warranted.     

Meta-analysis and the rehabilitation of punishment

Do we know what “works” in the way of rehabilitative treatment in corrections? Not yet. Has the old “nothing works” literature been invalidated by new reviews of research claiming to show, through meta-analysis, that treatment really does work, at least when it is “appropriate?” Not likely. Would production of this knowledge enhance the ability of prison officials to do their job? Not ever. Their job, and their highest duty, is to administer justice, not treatment. Individualized treatment muddles the message of punishment, making it less principled and not necessarily more humane. A “confinement model” of imprisonment is proposed, which rejects rehabilitation as an official goal and yet allows for programs of work, education, and other activities within the mission of a prison.     

Restrained Voices

Abstract

This research presents the voices of women inmates on health care services in prisons. Foucault's discourse analysis as a means of bringing to the surface restrained voices provides the theoretical basis for this study. The research is based on face-to-face interviews of fifty-six women inmates to understand better the role gender plays in prison health care delivery. The results show that women are willing to discuss only physical ailments and are reluctant to speak about mental health care or HIV. While women benefit from health care services in prison, they still feel that a female-oriented approach to health care in general will improve the services tremendously. This approach is not dictated by the “difference” in the ailments between men and women, but by the “difference” in the way men and women encounter health care providers and illnesses.     

Women Corrections Officers in Men's Prisons

ABSTRACT

Women have worked as corrections officers (COs) in some adult male prisons in most states for the past two decades. However, the degree of acceptance of women COs and the perception of women officers' job performance by men officers have varied greatly. This study was based on the results of a survey of men and women officers working in men's prisons in a midwestern state. Comparisons of the officers' responses about women's acceptance, safety, and perceived job performance revealed some significant gender differences. The results indicated that while women faced some resistance among men officers, it was not to the extent suggested by previous research studies, and the resistance came primarily from more experienced men officers. Women officers were confident of their ability to work effectively in men's prisons. The resistance to women that persists among some men officers is likely to provide an obstacle for women seeking opportunities for advancement and promotion in adult male prisons.     

Toward the development of punishment equivalencies: Male and female inmates rate the severity of alternative sanctions compared to prison

According to a survey of 415 male and female inmates serving brief prison terms for nonviolent offenses, inmates perceive several alternative sanctions as significantly more punitive than imprisonment. Women rate alternatives as less punitive than do men, and are more amenable to participating in them. We find that prison and probation do not necessarily define the high and low extremes along a continuum of sanction severity, and we show for the first time how female inmates rank the punitiveness of criminal sanctions. Findings bear on the eventual development of meaningful punishment equivalencies and a valid continuum of criminal sanctions while raising doubts about the value of brief prison terms as a specific deterrent to crime. Our results also support consideration of gender differences in punishment and deterrence. We critique the problems associated with research on offenders' perceptions of the severity of sanctions, and discuss implications for deterrence theory and corrections policy.     

Gender Differences in Officer Attitude and Behavior

Abstract

Historically, research on gender differences in police work has focused on whether women can “hold their own” in the male-dominated profession of policing. This body of research has undergone a shift from examining whether women can do the job, to how women do the job differently. This topic is intertwined with the increased use of community policing and recognition of the importance of officers having strong “people” skills and the ability to work with citizens. This paper focuses on how male and female officers respond to citizens differently in terms of providing comfort. Results from this analysis indicate that neither officer attitude nor behavior is dictated by officer sex. Rather, other important variables interact with sex to explain attitude and behavior. In addition, situational factors are most important in determining officer behavior. Officer attitude about citizens is not related to officers providing comfort to citizens.     

Feminized justice: The impact of women decision makers in the lower courts in Australia

We examine the impact of an Australian state government's decision to appoint a considerable number of women to its previously all-male Magistrates' Courts. Interviews with a sample of 30 male and female magnistrates revealed ready acceptance of this major change, probably because of organizational peculiarities of the jurisdiction. The advent of women as judicial decision makers was perceived to have improved the work environment of the courts. Comparison of the ways in which male and female magistrates perceive aspects of their job (e.g., judicial role, adjudication, sentencing, and the conduct of informal proceedings) suggests that most of the apparent gender differences are more likely the product of age and background than evidence of justice “in a different voice.” Changes in court ideology suggest that the appointment of women may have been used to further more general political objectives. A critical question for feminist research might be: When and why do conservative institutions adopt strategies that apparently promote women's interests?     

Gossip in a Maximum Security Female Prison: An Exploratory Study

This research examines 2 issues that have been overlooked by previous research on the subculture of female inmates: the social functions of gossip in a maximum security female prison and the inmates’ motivations and attitudes toward gossip and gossipers. The inmates of Israel's female prison perceive gossip as a negative phenomenon. Although they claim that gossip is frequent and central in their prison lives, most deny gossiping themselves. The inmates give several explanations for gossip. They see gossip as an inherent part of “female nature” and claim that gossip is used to increase one's social or material status. They also argue that gossip is an act of envy or an expression of useless evilness. Nonetheless, this study proposes that the inmates use gossip to relieve various pains of imprisonments and that despite the inmates’ negative attitudes, gossip may serve other beneficial social purposes of which the inmates are unaware. Although complex and occasionally contradictory, the findings of this study emphasize the multiple positive and negative functions that gossip has in the prison lives of female inmates.     

“It's Just Black,White, or Hispanic”: An Observational Study of Racializing Moves in California's Segregated Prison Reception Centers

This article takes as its launching point a 2005 U. S. Supreme Court case, Johnson v. California (543 U.S. 499), which ruled that the California Department of Corrections' unwritten practice of racially segregating inmates in prison reception centers is to be reviewed under the highest level of constitutional review, strict scrutiny. Relying on observational data from two California prison reception centers, this research is grounded in an interactionist perspective and influenced by Smith's work on “institutional ethnography.” I examine how racialization occurs in carceral settings, arguing that officers and inmates collaborate to arrive at a “negotiated settlement” regarding housing decisions. They do so working together (but not always in agreement) to shape how an inmate is categorized in terms of ‘race’/ethnicity and gang/group affiliation, within a framework established by official Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation paperwork and related institutional understandings of housing needs. The findings demonstrate that administrators, officers, and inmates alike have influence over the process by which people are categorized and ‘race’ is produced, even as they derive their power from different sources and are both enabled and constrained by the relationship between them. I conclude that California prisons are, as Wacquant has put it, “the main machine for ‘race making’” (2005:128), and that the fuel for that machine—a series of patterned, negotiated settlements—happens in real time, “on the ground,” and with important consequences for inmates, officers, and administrators.     

Book review essay

Prior research into the effects of racial diversity on workplace relationships has demonstrated that white workers prefer to work in and with groups which are also composed of white workers. Using structural equation models, we tested whether higher levels of racial diversity, measured as social distance from coworkers and inmates, were associated with lower evaluations of organizational commitment, teamwork among coworkers, and efficacy in dealing with inmates. We found the expected negative effects of racial diversity on white male correctional workers for organizational commitment, but not for teamwork and efficacy. For minority male correctional workers, racial diversity did not affect organizational commitment, teamwork, or efficacy.     

AGE AND RULE-BREAKING IN PRISON A Test of Sociocultural Interpretations

Age differences in rule-breaking have been widely noted and widely explained, but rarely if ever have sociological explanations been subjected to actual test. This study examines such age differences among women in prison and lends support to the notion that age differences are more characteristic of inmates with urban backgrounds than of inmates with rural or small town backgrounds. Moreover, among urban inmates age differences appear to be due to age-related normative orientations and commitments rather than age “itself” or related losses of “energy,”“daring,” or “vigor.” Finally, the study supports recurring arguments that non-constitutional characteristics of inmates can shape normative and behavioral conflict within the prison.     

Prison misconduct among female inmates with mental disorders,substance abuse/dependence,and co-occurring disorders in Taiwan

This survey study attempted to address two research questions: (1) whether female inmates with either singular mental illness or singular substance abuse/dependence disorders were more likely to break institutional rules in prison than their disorder-free counterparts; and (2) whether female inmates with both mental illness and substance abuse/dependence disorders (CODs) were more likely to engage in misbehaviour than either disorder-free or singularly disordered women during the course of their confinement. The current study employed a sample of 643 female inmates and the data for analyses contained information on inmates’ CODs, mental and substance abuse/dependence disorders, and pre-prison and prison experiences. The results showed that female inmates with CODs committed the most misconduct in prisons, but no significant effect was found on prison misconduct among inmates with singular disorders and disorder-free female inmates. Possible explanations for these results were suggested, and public policy implications were discussed in the concluding section.     

DOING HER OWN TIME? WOMEN'S RESPONSES TO PRISON IN THE CONTEXT OF THE OLD AND THE NEW PENOLOGY*

Assumptions about gender role socialization dominated explanations for gender differences in responses to incarceration. We suspend these gender comparisons, which produced the focus on homosexuality and kinship networks in women's prisons, to determine how women's pre‐prison experiences, in the context of two different institutions, influence the way they “do time.” We analyze in‐depth interviews with a diverse sample of 70 female inmates housed in the California Institution for Women (CIW)—the oldest prison for women in the state—and Valley State Prison (VSP)—the newest prison for women. These two institutions differ in structure, size, and management philosophy, and accordingly necessitate the consideration of moderating situational effects. We use qualitative analysis to examine how women do time and to determine whether individual variations in doing time are similar across very different institutions.     

Frustration: The mold of judicial philosophy

Abstract

The Framers understood the Constitution to be the fundamental expression of the rule of law over against the arbitrary, intemperate, and unjust “rule of men” that all too frequently existed in the political world, unfortunately both democratic as well as monarchical. Accordingly, the rule of law requires a well functioning political and legal system that includes legislative checks and balances, the separation of power between the President and Congress, an independent judiciary, federalism, etc. What happens when this “Madisonian” constitutional system, designed to express “the deliberate sense of the community,” runs into a Judicial branch that, in effect, claims we live under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what we say it is. Must the Judiciary itself be subject to the rule of law, and the decisions of a constitutional majority, or does their “independence” extend to being independent of the constraints of the rule of law and, thus, decent majority rule? How did the original John Marshall Court answer these questions, and what light do the leading cases and controversies shed on the relationship between the Marshall Court and the Madisonian System? Are we facing a situation of Marshall v. Madison?     

General Deterrence and Corporate Environmental Behavior*

This research addresses the assumption that “general deterrence” is an important key to enhanced compliance with regulatory laws. Through a survey of 233 firms in several industries in the United States, we sought to answer the following questions: (1) When severe legal penalties are imposed against a violator of environmental laws, do other companies in the same industry actually learn about such “signal cases”? (2) Does knowing about “signal cases” change firms’ compliance‐related behavior? It was found that only 42 percent of respondents could identify the “signal case,” but 89 percent could identify some enforcement actions against other firms, and 63 percent of firms reported having taken some compliance‐related actions in response to learning about such cases. Overall, it is concluded that because most firms are in compliance already (for a variety of other reasons), this form of “explicit general deterrence” knowledge usually serves not to enhance the perceived threat of legal punishment, but as reassurance that compliance is not foolish and as a reminder to check on the reliability of existing compliance routines.     

Where the Margins Meet: A Demographic Assessment of Transgender Inmates in Men’s Prisons

Drawing on official data and original interview data on 315 transgender inmates in California prisons for men, this research provides the first empirical portrayal of a prison population in California that is unique by virtue of being both transgender and incarcerated. Situated at the nexus of intersecting marginalities, transgender inmates fare far worse on standard demographic and health measures than their non‐transgender counterparts in the US population, the California population, the US prison population, and the California prison population. With the possible exceptions of partnership status and educational attainment, these factors combine to reveal that transgender inmates are marginalized in heretofore undocumented ways. At a time in which an evidence‐based approach to corrections is increasingly embraced by corrections officials in the US, this article provides the first systematic profile of transgender prisoners. It reveals they can be regarded as a special population that, from a policy point of view, raises what Minow calls “the dilemma of difference”.     

Is There Touch in the Game of Twister®? The Effects of Innocuous Touch and Suggestive Questions on Children's Eyewitness Memory

Preschool children (ages 48–70 months, N = 48) experienced 2 to-be-remembered events (i.e., the games Twister^® and Shapes) that included either innocuous bodily touch or no touch. Participants were interviewed 7 days later and asked direct (“Did Amy kiss you?”) or suggestive “tag” questions (“Amy kissed you, didn't she?”) equated for content. Results indicated that children who were innocuously touched were no more likely to falsely assent to “abuse-related” touch questions (e.g., “Amy touched your bottom, didn't she?”) than were children who were not touched. However, children who were asked tag questions responded at chance levels, thereby making high errors of commission in response to abuse-touch questions relative to their no-tag counterparts who responded to “abuse questions” accurately 93% of the time. Children who were asked tag questions assented at a higher rate to general forensic questions (“Amy took your picture, didn't she?”) than did children asked direct questions, and children assented at higher rates to “abuse-touch” questions than to general forensic questions. Results are discussed in terms of prior research on interviewing techniques and adult influence on children's testimony.     

PERCEPTIONS OF THE WORK ENVIRONMENT AMONG CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS: DO RACE AND SEX MATTER?*

This article examines the relationship between race and sex and perceptions of the work environment among correctional officers. It addresses four central questions: (1) Are there race and sex differences among correctional officers in their perceptions of the work environment? (2) Do characteristics of the job and the institutions in which officers work account for these differences? (3) Do these differences attenuate over time? (4) Are there factors that mediate the relationship between race and sex and perceptions of the work environment? These issues are explored using data drawn from the correctional officer sub-sample (N= 2,979) of the 1992 administration of the Prison Social Climate Survey. Findings indicate that race and sex do play a role in shaping officers’ perceptions of the work environment, that these differences between groups are not completely accounted for by job or institutional characteristics and do not attenuate over time, and that there are factors that mediate the relationship between race and sex and workplace perceptions. Among minority male officers, greater efficacy in working with inmates appears to be an important factor in creating lower levels of job stress, while white female officers’ higher levels of overall job satisfaction are accounted for largely by a more positive evaluation of the quality of supervision.     

Aggressive behavior among female inmates: An exploratory study

Over the past decade the issue of inmate violence and victimization in institutions for adult males has dominated the field of penology. Despite evidence of violence and degradation in institutions for women, empirical research documenting this phenomenon is scarce. Using data gathered from the Minnesota correctional facility for adult female felons, this study looks at the extent of agressive behavior among female inmates and examines some of the factors that may be associated significantly with aggressive acts. Race, age, childhood family structure, offense of conviction, time served on present and past offense(s), race relations, and current drug use are examined in light of the prior research on prison violence. The data reveal that both race and childhood family structure are associated significantly with female inmate aggression. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Marginality or Neglect

Abstract

While the number of females imprisoned in America is significantly smaller than that of their male counterparts, the growth rate of incarcerated women over the last two decades has outpaced that of men. This increase can largely be attributed to stringent crime control policies, particularly regarding drug-related offenses. Within the same period of time the number of aging inmates has also increased. An exploratory telephone census of all state Department of Corrections and the Federal of Bureau of Prison reveal a pattern of malign neglect toward aging female inmates. Despite the growth in the female inmate population, federal and state policies and programs neglect the unique living environment, health care and programming needs of aging female inmates. After reviewing the growth patterns and projections for female inmates, state and federal policies will be examined to determine which, if any, are arguably gender-specific.