The “Purpose” of Female Prisons

The “Purpose” of Female Prisons

How the processes of modern prisons complexes reinforce gender roles, oppression and gender / race inequality

A response to a call for “equality” in prisons shown above in which women were forced into chain gangs rather than men being released from chains in male prisons.

Public capital punishments were a core part of many “advanced” civilizations (Europe, Rome, etc.) in human history. Governments would torture, kill, or humiliate those that broke their moral or legal codes to maintain order in their states. These punishments were often overly cruel, and yet, all too common. The objective of the state was to, typically, make an example of those that did not follow what they considered to be proper behavior in moral or criminal terms. It was a form of incentive for others to follow the law or be punished, to show that behavior that was not acceptable by the government would not be tolerated, and that one was better off just following the laws rather than to break them. There was, however, one major flaw in this form of punishment. The administration of these punishments tended to be more appalling than the crime that was committed in the first place, and was directly witnessed by the people. This meant that people could argue that their government was in violation of the same laws that it was trying to enforce to begin with, not to mention several other major issues with this system. Prisons have a similar purpose in the sense that the government hopes to give incentive to their subjects not to break the law, at least in theory. Eventually, these prison systems would, for the most part, replace public capital punishments. As Angela Davis says, “incarceration within a penitentiary was assumed to be humane.” In doing so, the state tried to remove the public’s perception of negativity associated with any form of capital punishment by moving it to a more private setting.

The Purpose of the Modern Prison System:

Today’s prisons in the United States have essentially declared a mission statement, simply by giving it a name, “Correctional Facility.” This title implies that the purpose of detainment of criminals is to “correct” those that decide to break the law in some fashion. This means that a criminal will have to realign with a set of behavioral guidelines that are established by the governing body while finishing their incarceration sentence. When presented this way, it should be clear that there is a fundamental, moral issue with the prison system. Ideally, those in the higher positions of power in the United States should accurately reflect the views and ideals of all persons that make up the nation; however, this is most certainly not the case.

For example, the make-up of the Congressional body in the United States was, according to a Washington Post article, “80 percent white, 80 percent male, and 92 percent Christian.” Yet, 80 percent of this nation is not white and certainly not 80 percent male. From this, one can clearly see that the policies and agendas that form from our political base are not likely to accurately reflect all constituents in the nation. Rather, women and minorities are likely to be neglected in policies, including those that formulate penal codes throughout the country. If the vast majority of power is held by white, Christian males, not just in Congress but throughout the government as well as the justice system, then the predominant mindset throughout will be of those in charge. Any prejudices, discrimination, an so forth, will emerge within the system, more specifically, the prison system.

With all of that said, we should return to the concept of what it means to be a “correctional facility,” - to correct and reform the individuals that end up in the prison system. A big question that presents itself is, simply, what does a correction or reformation look like for someone involved in the system? Well the answer is that the reformation for those incarcerated will be an attempt to correct, or readjust, their behaviors and thoughts. This “realignment” requires the prisoner to behave in a certain way. A way that conforms to the ideals and norms set, once again, by those that run correctional facilities. It should not be too far fetched to make the connection, then, that if we live in a white, Christian patriarchal society, that females and minorities are probably going to be treated in different ways than that of a white male in the same system. For the rest of this article, we will specifically looking into the reforming process of females in the prison system and how ones ethnicity may influence their experience.

A Woman’s Reformation in a Correctional Facility:

If a female inmate is to align with the ideals or norms beset upon them by white male correctional officers in order to be released back into society, then they must essentially conform to what those correctional officers believe is proper behavior and action. An example of what this would look like is that if the woman to be corrected was a white female, then she would be taught how to be a “proper” white woman when released back into society. This means being taught domestic duties through means of the work required by the women in prisons, which only reinforce “the deeply gender-biased structure” (Davis) of patriarchal society. The (rather messed up) idea being that these women will know how to assimilate back into society seamlessly upon their return. Correctional facilities will fix the “broken” parts of these women back to the way that they see fit, as if to remove one’s opportunity to be an individual that is not in line with traditional gender roles for women.

This means that women in penitentiaries will have to follow a cookie-cutter lifestyle during their imprisonment setup by those in charge. White women will be exposed to certain things that will help them become “better” white women in our traditional, male dominating society. These experiences are likely to not be shared with minorities in the same prison. Women of color tend to be treated poorly in comparison. They may have work that might be interpreted as more degrading, such as janitorial work or some other physical labor. Unfortunately, this could simply be a reflection of what a large proportion of white male correctional personnel see as “normal.” The personnel may just associate racial stereotypes to these women and, in turn, administer the associated work or treatment of women of those races. In other words, women of color may be assigned work that is consistent with certain stereotypes. Some of these women are even sent to men’s prisons, as if women are color are not seen as feminine like that of the white woman. It could also be that these women are seen as incapable of becoming the reformed individual that the prisons aim for. Perhaps, because they are not white, these women are never even given the chance to work equally with white women and, by default, are destined to slip through the cracks and fall back into a perpetual cycle of incarceration for their entire life. After all, according to the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency in 2014, black females, “were 3 times more likely to be imprisoned than white females,” and Hispanic females, “had imprisonment rates nearly twice those of white females.”